Introduction to Ethical and Legal Perspectives in Healthcare

Patient safety is considered paramount whenever decisions about medical procedures and practices are undertaken. The choices are based on legal and ethical imperatives. Meaning all health care providers have a mandate of putting into account all the legal and ethical challenges surrounding their practice. In most cases, care providers are often overwhelmed with their work and patient outcomes to the extent of forgetting the required standards in medical practice. This can lead to undesired results, and often questions about ethical issues in such medical practices have been asked just as it will be illustrated in the following medical cases.

Case 1

The first case involves cooperation between a surgeon and Anesthesiologist during intraoperative cardiac arrest. Though rare, it is one that most surgeons and anesthesiologists will experience during their careers. In the case, in the event of a cardiac arrest, anesthesiologists and surgeons alike are united and collaborative to ensure that the patient survives. However, an ethical issue emerges from the undecided nature of the doctor, who led the anesthesiology team. The doctor did not know whether to continue ceasing the resuscitation procedure or not. It shows the doctor’s reluctance to share an alternative option that will better the patient’s life, which seems to be at risk. As pointed out by Tayade and Dalvi (2016), this indicates that the doctor does not have sufficient facts and data to support the reasons for ceasing the revival procedure.

In terms of fundamental ethical principles, beneficence is relevant in this scenario. The beneficence principle is illustrated as both teams showed collaboration toward preventing and removing harm from the patient (Kadivar et al., 2017). These responsibilities are regarded as rational and are widely accepted as the proper goals of medicine.

In this case, the patient was handled ethically, and I would have also acted in a similar way. This is because both surgeon’s team and Anesthesiologist’s team depicted both emotional and psychological collaboration (Yip et al., 2016). And I agree with researchers that teamwork between physicians who both possess different training and skills is significant in ushering patients through some of the most life-altering and invasive periods of their lives.

Case 2

The case highlights a prominent researcher who consistently makes protocol deviations year after year. Meanwhile, the institutional review board and university leadership fail to amply address his continuing noncompliance due to Dr. E’s prominent academic achievements and financial contributions to the university. There are several ethical issues presented in this case. There is an ethical issue of noncompliance, whereby the doctor is not performing his research investigation as per the required standards. Also, there is a cover-up of the doctor’s noncompliance actions by the university leadership for personal interests.

In this case, the principle of beneficence has been violated by Dr. E. This is because, as a physician, his first obligation is to take care of subjects of research as he undertakes a thorough investigation that will bring overall benefit (Yip et al., 2016). However, the doctor seems to be less concerned with the noncompliance claims that have been put against him concerning the wellbeing of the subjects. The university board also appears to have conspired to protect him in order to continue getting financial gains from his work. In this case, both the doctor and the university leadership are not interested in the wellbeing of the research subjects, and they may as well be violating the principles of justice and autonomy.

This case depicts unethical practices, and from a professional perception, I would have done things using a different approach. For instance, I will take a functional role in addressing the issue of noncompliance that is beyond IRB’s capability to resolve. Being near the doctor, I will carefully monitor his practices to ensure all of them are as per regulatory requirements. I will also ensure that the doctor adheres to beneficence, autonomy, justice, and non- maleficence principals (Yip et al., 2016). I will use the principals as a gauge to measure the doctor’s research standards.

References

Kadivar, M., Manookian, A., Asghari, F., Niknafs, N., Okazi, A., & Zarvani, A. (2017). Ethical and legal aspects of patient’s safety: a clinical case report. Journal of medical ethics and history of medicine, 10.

Tayade, M. C., & Dalvi, S. D. (2016). Fundamental Ethical Issues in Unnecessary Surgical Procedures. Journal of clinical and diagnostic research: JCDR, 10(4), JE01.

Yip, C., Han, N. L. R., & Sng, B. L. (2016). Legal and ethical issues in research. Indian journal of anaesthesia, 60(9), 684.