Ethical Issues In Grey's Anatomy

I watched Grey’s Anatomy Season 1 Episode 9, titled Who’s Zoomin Who. This episode starts off in a way that does relate to any ethical issue. George has just slept with a new girl and finds out that he has syphilis. The entire wing of the hospital experiences a syphilis outbreak leading the staff needing to be tested for the STD. Grey’s Anatomy has many storylines and another in this episode deals with the Chief of Surgery, Dr. Webber. He finds out that he has a tumor behind his eye, and he recruits Dr. Shepard to keep this secret and do the surgery to remove the tumor. Dr. Burke is also dealing with a friend who has an ovary that he needs to have removed.
The part of the episode that has an ethical issue comes about when Cristina and Izzie have a patient suddenly die in their care. The patient is an older man who they find to have a lot of fluid in his gut, which could eventually threaten his life. When they are removing the fluid, the patient dies on

the table. Cristina and Izzie want to find out how the patient died. However, when they ask the family to do an autopsy, they refuse. Not wanting to take no for an answer, the two residents take it upon themselves to do the autopsy even without consent from the family. They are caught by Dr. Bailey, forcing them to go into damage control and try get the family to consent after the fact. Because Cristina and Izzie found that the dead man had a genetic condition that could threaten his daughter’s life, the wife and daughter agree to sign the consent form so the hospital can avoid a lawsuit.
The issue of informed consent has long been an issue debated by ethicists and others involved in the health care field. Informed consent has many elements that all contribute to the patient and/or family being completely informed of the procedure and its results. Doctors or other involved with the patient must present the patient with the nature of the procedure, reasonable alternatives to the proposed treatment, the risks and benefits, and make sure that the patient understands what is going to happen. In this case Cristina and Izzie do follow this process but forget the most important part; acceptance of the procedure by the patient or their family. Because the wife and daughter do not agree to go through with the autopsy, Cristina and Izzie violated informed consent.
Informed consent is extremely important for many reasons.

I believe the most important is so that procedures are not done that the patient does not want to have. If there was nothing like informed consent, Doctors would be free to do whatever treatment they wanted to on their patients. This could possibly lead to procedures that are not in the best interest of patient. Although doctors have an obligation to treat patients in the best way possible, we have seen throughout this class how doctors are not different than the rest of us and can get selfish. This has led to procedures and experiments that were harmful to the patients. Without Informed Consent it is possible for doctors to manipulate patients into agreeing to things that they do not understand. When informed consent is enforced, it ensures that all doctors act in the best interests of their patients and not themselves. It also makes sure that patients are not agreeing to procedures and/or treatments that they do not completely

understand.
Conflict over this issue usually arises when the process is not followed. There are many cases each year that result in people suing over hospitals not getting informed consent or not following the process. Even in this case, Cristina, Izzie, and Dr. Bailey, were afraid that the wife and daughter of the patient were going to sue the hospital. When the process is not followed, patients are not able to make the best decision for their health care. This can lead to complications that make it difficult to maintain trust between patient and healthcare provider. As most people know, trust is essential when it comes to the relationship between the doctor and patient.
Because of the fear of being sued, this episode offered up the solution of getting the family to sign the consent after the autopsy had already been performed. Izzie and Cristina found a genetic condition that the patient has that would threaten the life of the daughter if she has it. The wife and daughter are thankful for this and agree to sign the consent form. In the end, the hospital would not need to worry about a lawsuit over the illegal autopsy that the two residents performed.
This solution, while effective, is not one that would work in almost any other situation. However, in this situation, the solution that Dr. Bailey brought forth was extremely well-thought out and brought about the best possible results. If the autopsy had not found the genetic problem that was present, there is a good chance that the wife and daughter would have decided to sue the hospital. In short, the hospital would have completely lucked out if this was an actual occurrence.
Using the Utilitarian Theory of ethics, the solution of getting the consent form signed after the fact was the best. This solution offered the greatest good for the greatest number of people. The daughter was now informed of the genetic condition that she could possibly have and the hospital avoided the costly lawsuit that would have occurred if the family decided to file one. If Dr. Bailey had not come up with this solution or if the family had refused, the situation would have been much worse for some. If that were to have happened, the family of the patient would probably be better off because they would have a lot of money. However, the Hospital would have lost a lot of money and their reputation would have taken a hit. Also many doctors, including Dr. Bailey, Cristina, and Izzie, would have been damaged professionally and possibly even lost their license.
Preference Utilitarianism applies to this situation because Dr. Bailey fulfilled her desire to preserve her reputation and avoid a lawsuit. In some ways the desires of the family were also fulfilled. The wife was able to know what actually killed her husband. The daughter, who was always hard on her father, was finally able to understand that he had a disease that caused him to act the way that he did.
The other Utilitarian theory, Hedonistic Utilitarianism, also applies because the solution was able to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. The basic impulse of Dr. Bailey was to minimize the pain of the situation, which would have been the lawsuit, and maximize the happiness, which would be avoiding the lawsuit and helping the family by telling them of the genetic condition. Even though Dr. Bailey’s intentions may not have been in the interests of anybody other than herself and the hospital, the outcome was one that had good consequences. Under Hedonistic Utilitarianism, this means that she was morally good because of the fact that the outcome was good. When this is the case, it doesn’t matter what people’s intentions are, it only matters what the end result is.
Informed Consent will continue to be an issue debated by ethicists for a long time. Until there is a perfect system of Informing patients and getting their consent, doctors and other health care providers will continue to, either unintentionally or otherwise, violate the process. This case while not physically harming anybody, is a perfect example of doctors violating Informed Consent for their own personal gain, which is this case was Cristina and Izzie wanting to find out how their patient suddenly died. Having said that, it is a relief knowing that the process of Informed Consent has improved greatly over the last few decades, to the point where most facilities now have pretty strict policies regarding this issue. I think this episode did do a good job of portraying why Informed Consent is important and also how it can be violated.