PHI-413V-RS-T3 Case Study Assignment: Healing and Autonomy

Case Study: Biomedical Ethics in the Christian Narrative
Name
August 2, 2016
Introduction
There is dire need for Mike and Joanne to make a critical decision about the health of their son James. Being staunch Christians, Mike and Joanne want to heal their child and at the same time want him to be cared for in the hospital. This poses a lot of dilemma for them as a family. According to the Christian vision of the world, the attitude towards life and death in a way that life is understood as a trust from God. It’s also to direct causation of death is beyond the limits of human power (Sugarman, & Sulmasy, 2010).
Pressing Issues
Inspired by this definition, Mike decides to put their faith in God and postpone James medical care. During this time, the family decides to take James to their minister to be healed. At this period their faith lies within the provisions of Christianity and they truly trust that God will heal James. After one-week James is not healed, and they are forced to put him on dialysis without further questions.
One of the biggest ethical dilemmas is balancing between the principle of autonomy where physicians have an obligation to not only allow the patients or their guardian to make decisions about their health but also to provide conditions necessary for such decisions, and the principle of beneficence. The principle of beneficence obliges the physician to help their patients and do all within their powers to preserve life. According to the case study, there is a conflict between James’s parents’ autonomous decision and the physician’s beneficent duty to look out of the patient’s best interest.
Physicians Perspective
As stated in biomedical ethics, as long as the patients are within the threshold of making autonomous decisions regarding their lives, the physician should respect the decision. This is the case even when trying to convince the patient otherwise. It is evident in the case study that Mike and Joanne being bonafide parents of James who is eight years old and has not reached the age of making an own autonomous decision, merits to decide on his behalf. In this situation, and guided by the principle of autonomy, the physician should allow Mike and to make whatever decision he sees fit for his son. Physicians can only guide but not impose their decisions on the patients.
Christian Narrative
According to Verhey (2003), Christians view sickness as a reflection of god's care for the sinners and healing as a token of Gods triumph over sin. From the above statement, it can be argued that Mike suffers knowing that God's failure to heal his son may be some form of punishment for James or the family. Mike knows their faith is being tested. He needs to figure quickly out whether it is punishment or test while the same ensure their son’s health is prioritized.
Christian need to borrow from how Jesus mingled with the sick and the dead to understand that sickness is not evil feature. From Jesus’ presence and healing of the sick, Christians learned that sickness was not a result of one's action thus the person needed to be cared. Christian's obligations to ...