The Role Of Autonomy In Healthcare

Many Healthcare providers across the United States face occurrences where autonomy isn’t always regarded as the right thing to do. Although autonomy wasn’t always practiced in healthcare, it has become a foundation for all patient interactions (McCabe, 2010). Cases where family members ask for professionals not to disclose information due to cultural beliefs can be very trivial. Despite these cultural considerations, it is always the physician’s duty to disclose factual conditions of the patient to that receiving patient. The physician’s duty can be achieved as well as culture being considered so that the physician-patient relationship is still intact. A variety of cultures constitute the people of the United States. Culture greatly influences

The ethical problems that this physician must handle is if she should disclose the diagnosis to the patient which might disrespect the patient’s family and culture; as well as maintaining the physician-patient relationship. Moreover, the issue relies within the ethical principle of autonomy that exemplifies patient sovereignty (Ritter,2017, p.25). In this tricky situation, most health practioners would believe that without providing the truth of the diagnosis there will be lack of trust; thus, ruining the development of the physician-patient relationship. The physician’s priority is always to the patient; therefore, making it their duty to disclose the truth to the patient if they wish to know it. Autonomy addresses more than patient’s rights to make their own decisions, it also extends to social and cultural factors in healthcare (Murgic, 2015). In a culturally diverse country, like the United States, it is only natural that autonomous decisions are not always agreed upon. In contrast, many cultures require the family to make the decisions regarding treatments and other healthcare decisions; similar to the Japanese family in this