Ethical issues in AMA Journal of Ethics

AMA Journal of Ethics Analysis
Ethics
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Ethics
Every day, professionals face ethical and legal dilemmas. Understanding and knowing the difference between right and wrong can be difficult and often subjective. For instance, healthcare is currently governed by a myriad of unclear laws, rules, ethical standards and regulations. As such caregivers encounter problems that involve informed consent, confidentiality, patient’s relationships, and religious values (Grosek, 2020). Today, what is legal might not be necessarily ethical. For instance, medical procedures that might be considered ethical for adults may not be ethical for minors.
Caring for unrepresented patients who lack decision-making capacity, no applicable directives that guide their treatments, as well as unavailability surrogate decision-maker, pose ethical dilemmas to healthcare providers. In such a scenario, healthcare professionals lack people they can engage in shared decision making, which is recommended for value-laden decisions in health settings. As such, these patients face the risk of being undertreated, over-treated or else treated against their values and preferences (Hofmann, 2019). In cases where urgent decision making is paramount such as ICU and emergence rooms, providers may be faced even with tougher problems.
In the article “How Should Clinicians Navigate Decision Making for Unpresented patients” Timothy Dempsey and Erin Sullivan demonstrate the high prevalence of unrepresented patients in health facilities. They show the ethical challenges such patients pose to health providers. In such cases, treatment decisions are tasked to healthcare providers. Unrepresented patients may include the elderly, mentally disabled, homeless, minors and incarcerated (Hofmann, 2019). Providing quality and safe care that does not violate the preference and values of these patients can be challenging.
Balancing healthcare decisions for unrepresented patients with ethical principles of respect for autonomy and beneficence can be an uphill task. Normally, respect for independence allows patients to accept or decline medical interventions. As such, healthcare providers are required to seek a patient’s consent or informed agreement prior to diagnosis or administering any treatment plans. In the United States, for example, medical law protects the right of patients through informed consent. Medical professionals are thus expected to explain treatment plans, including the benefits and risks associated with a specific medical procedure (Hofmann, 2019). On the other hand, the principle of beneficence calls for healthcare to act for the maximum advantage of their patients through balancing the benefits and risks of any health procedure. As such caregivers have a moral obligation to protect the rights of patients, minimize harm, rescue patients from danger as well as help vulnerable patients such as those living with disabilities (Blackstone, Daly & Cynthia, 2020).
Timothy and Erin present a case of an elderly homeless and mentally challenged woman with a worsening medical condition that requires an immediate lumbar puncture for diagnosis. With the patient being uncooperative and unrepresented, D...