Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Medical practice and ethics
Chapter 4 summary of health care ethics
Ethical dilemmas in the medical field
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Medical practice and ethics
When you think of a person being the upmost professional, you automatically think of someone in the medical field. The fact we would always look to a physician, to display a serious, diligent, meticulous, and a conscientious demeanor in his line of work. The reason being in a life and death situation we don’t want a comedian or any other type of unprofessional person attending to our needs. The article I read the” Misogynistic Doctor Behavior Sparks Ethics Concerns,” the article gave insight to doctors being very unprofessional. The first example was a woman, who was unconsciousness and naked, a remark, that this was pleasurable to the woman. The fact a doctor would think about something being sexual during a major operation is inconceivable.
In “Defining a Doctor,” Zuger compares specific behaviors and attitudes of the male and the female intern. Zuger begins to observe how her two interns handle medicine and how they connect with their patients on a personal level. Zuger finds the woman intern to be more prepared by how she brought notebooks and pens every day to work while the man intern would come with empty pockets instead. The women soon began to grow emotionally attached to her patients and would work late hours, sometimes not bothering to go home and rest. In contrast, the man showed up on time to work and would leave as scheduled. The woman would not only do her job to get more things done efficiently but she would even do others work while, the male intern wouldn’t attempt to do anyone else’s work other than his own. When it came to that time when their patient would pass, the women would cry while the male shrugged his shoulders. The women might have had a better relationship since it was easier for her to emotionally connect with her patient than the man. Zuger concludes that “The women cared too much” while “the man cared to little.” She worked too hard, and he could not be prodded into working hard enough. The women distinguish that her patient was “hers” and did everything she could to make to make them feel comfortable. From my experience, my mother is a great example of how she is similar to the woman intern. At her job, she feels the need to do everyone 's job in order to get things done and would come home feeling stressed. She has a great relationship with all of her employees and they would always come to her comfort. Just like the intern, she would put others before
Medical dramas have been around a long time and changes have been made to recreate and reinforce our society. Women and people of color could not and were not physicians on television, film and in the Western world back in the less progressive years. Now there are women, gay people, African Americans, Asians, and many more minorities playing doctors. Television has certain portrayals of femininity and masculinity, even if it has come far. On the episode of Grey’s Anatomy, “Rise Up”, Dr. Owen Hunt asks Dr. Callie Torres about two female surgeons and who he should chose to participate in the solo surgery. One of the candidates, Dr. Cristina Yang, comes into the room to explain the charts to both doctors. She later leaves when asked to go update
Grey initially enters the medical field as a surgical intern and in further episodes, she eventually becomes the head of general surgery due to her outstanding abilities and work ethic. By documenting this rise from an entry level position to a prestigious post within medicine, Grey’s Anatomy promotes a positive image of ambitious and committed women who can advance to high level promotions that would stereotypically be held by men. Along with this idea of female success, the women in the show are often shown in the same scrubs as men of the same position, eliminating the stereotype of the highly sexualized female appearing in mainstream culture. As a character, Dr. Grey is a social, professional, and dependable surgeon who is able to consistently demonstrate her talents as a surgeon throughout the show. In episode seventeen of the second season of Grey’s Anatomy, Dr. Grey shows an extreme dedication to her occupation and patients when she risks her life to remove a bomb from a patient in order to treat the patient’s bleeding. By putting herself in a position where she saved both her patient and willingly removed a bomb, Dr. Grey displays a high level of compassion, courage, and intelligence that puts her well above the stereotypical idea of a competent male doctor within the medical field. In this light, the characterization of Dr. Grey’s character on Grey’s Anatomy promotes the image of a successful, dependable, and non-sexualized female doctor in
In “Defining a Doctor” Zuger compares specific behavior and attitudes of the women and the men intern. Zuger begins to observe how her two interns emotions and how they handle medicine and how they connect with their patient. She begins to take notice on how different both of the interns behaviors are and how they interact with the patient. Zuger finds the women intren to be more prepared and brought notebooks and pens while the male intern would come with empty pockets instead. The women soon began to grow emotionally attached to her patient that should would work late hours and sometimes did not go home while the male showed up on time on his schedule and would leave on the dot where he could leave. The women would not only do just her work to get more things done and become efficient she would even her others work to get the job done while the male wouldn’t even lay a finger on anyone 's work and would stay focus on his instead. When it came to that time when the patient would pass, the women would cry and the male just shrugged his shoulders and move on. The women might have had a better relationship since she was more emotional connection then the man. Zuger concludes “The women cared too much an dht man cared to little. She worked too hard, and he could not be prodded into working hard enough. They both made careless mistakes”. The women distinguish that her patent
The Advisory Board Company claims, “A recent review of clinical trials reveals that a doctor's bedside manner can greatly impact patients' health, aiding their efforts to lose weight, lower their blood pressure, or manage painful symptoms.” When doctors are treating patients poorly, it will cause anxiety and stress, which in turn causes physical health problems. Harm is not only caused by the manner in which a doctor treats their patient, but also by the way a doctor is treating other medical professional. Arrogant doctors can get so caught up with pride that they completely disregard the advice of other people in the medical field. That pride causes mistakes, which can severely harm patients. To put it simply, better bedside manner equals better patient health. In fact, “Some communication techniques have proven to make people feel better and help them heal faster.” ("Study: Physicians' Bedside Manner Affects Patients'
...ses are accused of not respecting the physician, but in fact they are only trying to help physicians understand their patient’s issues. On the other hand, physicians need to stop treating the nurses as if they were handmaids. Medicine and nursing may both improve the patient’s health, but are still considered to be two different disciplines. More people need to be better informed about the health policy and nursing care. All these arguments made by Gordon are well backed up with statistics and are similar to other arguments made by different bioethicists.
The word ethics is derived from the Greek word ‘ethos’ meaning character or conduct. It is typically used interchangeably with word moral which is derived from the Latin word ‘moves’ which means customs or habits. Ethics refers to conduct, character and motivations involved in moral acts. Ethics are not imposed by a profession, by law but by moral obligation. It is unwritten code of conduct that encompasses both professional conduct and judgement. Ethics helps support autonomy and self-determination, protect the vulnerable and promotes the welfare and equality of human beings. An ethical dentist- patient relationship is based on trust, honesty, confidentiality, privacy and the quality of care.1
It is quite obvious that morals, ethics and common courtesy are not enough to encourage the respect of patients in the educational atmosphere, as is seen in the story. I believe it is the responsibility of the medical school to encourage their teachers to demonstrate ways to connect with patients rather than just teaching the anatomy of health care. Teachers are supposed to be role models for students and if they are not taught to treat patients with respect, the only way they can learn that kind of skill is the hard way; through the loss of patients because of their feelings of irrelevancy at the doctor’s office, or through the complaints of people who are unsatisfied with their quality of health care.
Physicians should always know their boundaries when it comes to patients. The Committee on Physician Health and Rehabilitation wrote that “Social contacts with patients may blur the professional boundary.” I can see where this can be a problem in the office. For example, if a patient buys their physician an expensive gift it is highly recommended that the physician should decline such gifts. Because one thing could lead to another and whereas the physician might’ve thought that the patient was just trying to be nice. The patient could be thinking something totally different thing. In the medical field it is always said that physicians should never be over familiarity with patients, “familiarity” meaning; considerable acquaintance with or established friendship; intimacy. Maryland Board of Physicians wrote that “For a physician, sexual misconduct includes erotic behavior such as kissing, nudity, and sexual proposition or comment.” Any type of intimacy goes against the relationship between a patient and his or her physician being platonic. With boundary violations everyone lose...
Physician-assisted suicide refers to the physician acting indirectly in the death of the patient -- providing the means for death. The ethics of PAS is a continually debated topic. The range of arguments in support and opposition of PAS are vast. Justice, compassion, the moral irrelevance of the difference between killing and letting die, individual liberty are many arguments for PAS. The distinction between killing and letting die, sanctity of life, "do no harm" principle of medicine, and the potential for abuse are some of the arguments in favor of making PAS illegal. However, self-determination, and ultimately respect for autonomy are relied on heavily as principle arguments in the PAS issue.
Most healthcare providers will tell you that they feel that they are called to their profession, and most would tell you that they love practicing in their field of study. Healthcare providers are placed in situations frequently that can lead to cognitive dissonance. In healthcare there is a pressure to perform tasks frequently, timely, perfectly, and in a cost effective manner. This can lead to situations that are in conflict with training as well as with personal ethics.
In the documentary of “Being Mortal”, surgeon Atul Gawande speaks about how being a doctor is one of the hardest things. For this reason, it is based off of what he mentioned “that in doctoring school they only teach you a small percent of what you actually need to know”. By this he was saying that the schools teach students on what to do with the concept of medical procedures and how to do them, but they do not teach you about the “being moral” side of dealing with a patient’s health issues. Later in the documentary, one of the doctors mentions that he “wishes he could do better, that he also feels like it is a failure for doctors and the mental mentality they use now was not trained to deal with surreal issues that they face now with patients
Professionalism is an adherence to a set of values comprising both a formally agreed-upon code of conduct and the informal expectations of colleagues, clients and society. The key values include acting in a patient's interest, responsiveness to the health needs of society, maintaining the highest standards of excellence in the practice of medicine and in the generation and dissemination of knowledge. In addition to medical knowledge and skills, medical professionals should present psychosocial and humanistic qualities such as caring, empathy, humility and compassion, as well as social responsibility and sensitivity to people's culture and beliefs. All these qualities are expected of members of highly trained professions.
It was rightly said by Richard Seizer “If people understood that doctors weren't divine, perhaps the odor of malpractice might diminish.” For a patient, the doctor is like God. And, the almighty can never commit any mistake but that is what the patient thinks or believes. In reality, doctors are human beings. And, to err is human. Doctors may commit a mistake, but committing a mistake due to one’s own carelessness is defined as negligence. The Black law dictionary definition of negligence “conduct, whether of action or omission, which may be declared and treated as negligence without any argument or proof as to the particular surrounding circumstances, either because it is in violation of statue or valid municipal ordinance or because it is
Deprofessionalization of medicine affects the way those of the medical profession interact with patients greatly. Healthcare providers are forced by law to violate the values that make them who they are because of the request of customers demanding goods and services in the free market. This signals the end of medicine as a professional practice. It makes medicine just another exchange of goods and services as well as putting patients in the role of customers, ordering whatever they want from physicians. For example, an orthopedic surgeon would be forced to cut off a patient’s perfectly healthy leg rather than insisting that