Running head: ETHICAL HEALTH CARE ISSUES

Ethical Health Care Issues

Grace Hummel
HCS/545
October 6, 2014
Professor Charles Barron

ETHICAL HEALTH CARE ISSUES

Ethical Health Care Issues

When working with patients and their families, the health care professionals
occasionally will face unpopular and difficult decisions that relates to medical treatments
which moral issues such as religious beliefs and even professional guidelines of ethical
or not. Health care ethics is used as a parameter for staff to exemplify the standards of
the proper ethics and provide the imaginary ethics road map to success when speaking
to patients and families about choices based on beliefs, values, health, and possibly in
the end death. When dealing with moral issues in this manner it becomes even more
complex.

An example of a conflict of interest with a health care employee can exist when
an employee is influenced, whether consciously or unconsciously, by some form of
financial or personal gain. This proves their self-interest and lack of morals when it
comes to the good of the company. With a profit-driven organization the normal motive
for the presence of an ethical struggle is generally linked to some practice of individual
economic contemplations. A statements made by the American College of Physicians
showed that physicians meet industry representatives at the office and at professional
meetings, collaborate in community-based research, and develop or invest in healthrelated industries. In all of these spheres, partnered activities often offer important
opportunity for the introduction of bias (Mitnick, 2010). Some professionals are granted
privileges that include things like the influence to set scholastic and principled
standards. This ability permits the preservation of their competence and creates a

ETHICAL HEALTH CARE ISSUES

trustworthy and ethical employee. Now this employee is beneficial to the patients and
the society.

Dealing with the territory of patient precaution there are hazards to proficiency
and in many situations there are the possibilities for a conflict of interest. Sometimes
doctors have relationships with outside companies and when this happens these
relationships have the chance to create a conflict of interest when a physician decides
to accept some kind of gifts, act as a speaker on behalf of an outside company or if they
have some kind of interest financially in a product that will be used inside the hospital.
A conflict of interest may arise when a doctor has the chance to be paid for their
services. These conflicts will arise when dealing with any kind of payment system while
each payment system will have a different concern.

The prime targets for conflicts of interest are doctors and nurses. They have the
opportunity to receive some form of promotion from pharmaceutical companies and
companies that make the medical devices. This is the reason why the health care
industry has made some efforts to regulate things. This includes the Pharmaceutical
Research and Manufacturers of America who restructured the standards of behavior for
collaborations with the health care specialists in 2009 and the Council of Medical
Specialty Societies volunteered a code of ethics on their own in 2010 trying to limit the
influence of profit organizations. Even with taking these measures it has been found
that many physicians have no problems with accepting free sample of drugs from drug

ETHICAL HEALTH CARE ISSUES

companies through an issue of Archives of Surgery from the June 2010 issue. Also
reported was a variety of doctors may find it appropriate to receive free meals.

Noncompliance in simple terms is rejecting the actions to a rule of necessity. In

medicine, the term noncompliance is commonly used in regard to a patient who does
not take a prescribed medication or follow a prescribed course of treatment. A person
who demonstrates noncompliance is said to be noncompliant (medicinenet, 2011). In
this action we can look at the example here, As many as half of failures of treatment to
bring elevated blood pressure down to normal levels may be due to unrecognized
lapses in taking antihypertensive drugs as prescribed, according to a new study by a
team of researchers from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. (Stephenson, 2001).
It states in the reading that autonomy is the freedom we have to decide what we want to
do. Whether a consent form as been signed or not the patient must be aware that they
have the ability to withdraw from what is going on. With beneficence it is simply a
person taking an action for the benefit for another person. Beneficent actions are taken
for people to help prevent a person from a harmful situation or it can improve a situation
for other people. Simply put non-maleficence means to do no harm. With this one it
requires doctors to refrain from providing ineffective care or acting with malice. It is not
very helpful sometimes because many of the treatments carry some form of risk; it
needs to be checked to see if the reward outweighs the risks. Justice in health care is
usually defined as a form of fairness. It implies that a fair distribution of services will be
provided to society.

ETHICAL HEALTH CARE ISSUES

The ethical issues that an individual health care worker has to face will depend
on what specialized area the health care professional is staffed. An example would
consist of a hospital faced with a patient requesting euthanasia while at the same time a
health insurance agent is giving insurance to a patient under the same circumstances
and not receiving a clear assessment of the patients needs. The author of Ethical
Issues in Epidemiologic Research and Public Health practice Steven Coughlin states
that all who practice in the field of medicine will experience a level of ethical reasoning
during their day to day routine. Whether its a noncompliant client or a conflict of
interest, both have the opportunity to harm a patients health care. Employers try to
assure they are able to provide some form of ethical teaching with policies in place for
review. Training is a program some adopt to ensure the widespread of the information.
By training the management responsible for monitoring the work of these employees it
consolidates the exceptions of the organization. This level of training allows the trainer
to explain the type of ethical issues a health care worker may encounter, why the issue
is there and how to deal with the issue. If an employee or the supervisor does not
follow these guidelines the penalty can be fierce. Punishment for the employee could
result in suspension, fines or up to and including termination of their position.

ETHICAL HEALTH CARE ISSUES

References
Americas. (2009-2010). Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of
America Healthcare &, HEALTH CARE MANAGEMENT 1-76 Conference Paper
Abstracts. (2010). Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings, 1-38.
Doi:10.5465/AMBPP.2010.54503723 medicinenet. (2011, April 27). Definition of
noncompliance. Retrieved from
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=10159
Mitnick, S., Leffler, C., & Hood, V. (2010). Family caregivers, patients and
physicians: ethical guidance to optimize relationships. Journal of General Internal
Medicine, 25(3), 255-260.
Stephenson, J. (2001). Human biological materials in research: ethical issues
and the role of stewardship in minimizing researching risks. Advances in Nursing
Science, 24(2), 32-46.

ETHICAL HEALTH CARE ISSUES

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