Question

What ethical problems arise in fieldwork? Discuss some problems and possible solutions.

Answer 1

Fieldwork in medical refers to going out on the surveys or doing any kind of research or educating the people of different communities regarding their health etc. It has always been a challenge to the medical people in this field. It is well known that the medical personnel always faces a challenge while treating different kinds of people with keeping in mind each of their beliefs and wosheswregwosheswreghardingtheir health aspects. They are forced to take decisions keeping the etical values of the patient in mind on the daily basis. This decision may affect the patient if the health care team or member make this decision under any of the influence may it be personal or professional or emotional, hence it is necessary to make or develop an ethical committee in all the hospitals in order to provide the patient with better ethical decisions made for their well being. The work of this committee is to prepare or list down the ethical values and rules to be followed by all the employees of the same institution or organization.

The major ethical issues faced by the medical team on the daily basis are as follow:

1. Confidentiality: it is very important to know about the patient's right of confidentiality about his information and hence it is the duty of the doctor as well as the organisation to keep the patient's information as well as his file to be only handled by those working with the patient and not to be mishandled by the others.

2. Transmission of diseases: this is the main concern with the ethical committees in different organizations because the health care people treating the patient with communicable disease should be aware about the transmission of the disease to themselves but cannot freely use the protective equipments because it may make the patient feel uncomfortable. Hence it is responsibility of the ethical team to see on how to provide and educate their employees on sled protection and in such a way that it will not even make the patient feel uncomfortable.

3. Aggressive marketing practices: sometimes some hospital try to do the marketing on various new innovations and their launces of new diagnostics which maybe very expensive hence the organisation tries to do the marketing. Hence it is the responsibility of the ethical team to remind the people that the main goal of all the hospitals is to provide care required by the patient and not the marketing.

4. Provided information: it is very much important to provide an information regarding the work of the hospital to media for the sake of its promotion but providing fake information for the sake of making profit is not acceptable and should be avoided by the ethical team.

5. Gaining access to care: it is very difficult to get permission from the people during the field are visit to treat them or to diagnose them. They do not want you to make them get any disease when they don't have any problem or they don't trust the other medical field visitors other than doctors who sit in their office building and the patient go seeking their help. Hence it is very much important to provide education and awareness among people about the field visit and care.