Introduction: When a patient receives a diagnosis, test findings, or treatment recommendations, they typically assume that their healthcare professional is telling them the truth. However, healthcare professionals sometimes use euphemisms to avoid shocking or unduly worrying patients. The act of communicating facts or information that are true, truthful, and consistent with reality is known as truth-telling. It entails being truthful, open, and refraining from purposefully misleading or deceiving people. Truth-telling emphasizes the value of honesty and integrity in one's relationships with others. It is a key ethical and moral principle in communication and interaction. When a healthcare expert or provider purposefully misleads or withholds …show more content…
This is due to the fact that accurate information is essential for a patient to decide on a course of action and to govern their care. Giving patients accurate information is one approach that empowers them to make decisions that are beneficial to their overall health. Without the truth, patients' ability to make informed decisions would be questioned, and medical personnel would be less likely to recognize them as independent individuals. Lying is viewed as a violation of an individual's autonomy, which runs counter to ideas like patient empowerment, shared decision-making, and patient-centeredness. The second value is duty and trust. Renowned Western philosopher Kant held that everyone had an absolute obligation to speak the truth, even if doing so could be damaging. Lying, in his opinion, could never be justified because it is always detrimental to the victim or to humanity as a whole. It is an "accident" if harm arises from compassionately speaking the truth; on the other hand, the liar bears responsibility if harm emerges from lying. Kant goes on to say that disclosing the truth is always required, regardless of whether it pertains to another person's right to know or does grave injury to innocent parties. Put otherwise, deontologically speaking, capable patients ought to be told the truth regardless of the consequences. It can …show more content…
deception in healthcare: False Advertising: Pharmaceutical companies or medical device manufacturers may engage in deceptive advertising practices by exaggerating the benefits of their products while downplaying or omitting information about potential risks. For instance, a medication might be marketed as a miracle cure without adequate evidence to support such claims. Diagnostic Deception: Healthcare providers may deceive patients by misdiagnosing conditions or exaggerating the severity of an illness to justify unnecessary treatments or procedures. This can lead to emotional distress, financial burden, and even physical harm from unnecessary interventions. Financial Deception: Billing fraud and overcharging are prevalent forms of Research Misconduct: Deception can occur in clinical research when researchers manipulate data, fabricate results, or selectively publish findings to support a particular hypothesis or benefit a sponsor. This undermines the integrity of scientific research and can lead to the approval of ineffective or unsafe treatments. Placebo Deception: While placebos can sometimes be ethically used in clinical trials or as part of a treatment regimen, deceiving patients about the nature of the treatment they are receiving undermines
Cullen and Klein understand that deception is wrong and disrespectful to the patient but criticize that some cases are more complicated and not so black and white. They argue that physicians should be able to withhold information that can significantly benefit the patient. The key part is that the benefit is greater than what the deception causes.
One of the most complex, ever-changing careers is the medical field. Physicians are not only faced with medical challenges, but also with ethical ones. In “Respect for Patients, Physicians, and the Truth”, by Susan Cullen and Margaret Klein, they discuss to great extent the complicated dilemmas physicians encounter during their practice. In their publication, Cullen and Klein discuss the pros and cons of disclosing the medical diagnosis (identifying the nature or cause of the disease), and the prognosis (the end result after treating the condition). But this subject is not easily regulated nor are there guidelines to follow. One example that clearly illustrates the ambiguity of the subject is when a patient is diagnosed with a serious, life-threatening
Although I respect and trust nurses and doctors, I always carefully observe what is being done with myself or my family members. After watching Josie’s story and being in the process of becoming a medical assistant, I feel this story has given me an initiative to ensure patients and their families are kept safe. The generation we live in is technological, there are many resources for patients and families to utilize to educate themselves when it comes to medical conditions. Some people like to self-diagnose and it makes it harder for doctors and healthcare workers to work with those patients. This is when communication and active listening becomes especially important to work through what is fact and what is misplaced
Roger Higgs, in “On Telling Patients the Truth” supplies commonly used arguments for paternalistic deception. For the purposes of this paper, paternalism will be defined as, “interference with one’s autonomy or self determination for their own good.” The first argument for paternalistic deception is founded on the idea that medicine is a technical subject where there are very few guarantees (613). Thus, Higgs supplies the argument that not only is it impossible for a patient to understand the true breadth of their diagnosis and prognosis, but additionally that medical predictions are not medical truths. The second argument for paternalistic deception comes from the belief that patients do not actually want to know the truth about their condition, and could suffer from worse health outcomes if they are told the truth (614, 615).
Truth in medicine is a big discussion among many medical professionals about how doctors handle the truth. Truth to a patient can be presented in many ways and different doctors have different ways of handling it. Many often believe that patient’s being fully aware of their health; such as a bad diagnosis, could lead to depression compared to not knowing the diagnosis. In today’s society doctor’s are expected to deliver patient’s the whole truth in order for patients to actively make their own health decisions. Shelly K. Schwartz discusses the truth in her essay, Is It Ever Ok to Lie to Patients?. Schwartz argument is that patients should be told the truth about their health and presented and addressed in a way most comfortable to the patient.
Being knowledgeable and factual is key to providing an accurate and credible description to the patient. These points emphasize the importance of knowing and continuing to grow in the human science portion of
From deontological perspective, nurse must always tell the truth regardless of the outcome. Utilitarian would argue that withholding the truth or telling a lie is permissible if it may produce better outcome for a patient or prevent harm. According to Tuckett (2012), the principle of truth telling is often violated during provision of care to dementia patients and based on intention to eliminate distress, anxiety, or depression (beneficence and non-maleficence). It can be argued that withholding the truth or telling lie is deceptive to patient’s autonomy, however permissible if can be justified. Such as, “Providers have a responsibility to determine the resident’s level of insight over time to ensure decisions to deceive are genuinely in the resident’s best interest. In the context of lying to a resident with dementia, lying is conceptualized as therapeutic” (Tuckett, 2012,
From the utilitarian’s side, lying might be a good choice, since it brings more happiness to the patient. In fact, truthfulness can actually do harm. Patient’s health situation becomes worst when he knows that he have a serious disease. He will become depressed and might suffer from psychological disorders like anxiety which reduces the efficiency of healing. For example people suffering from Nosophobia , Hypochondriasis or Nosocomephobia: “which are an irrational fear of contracting a disease, a fear of hospitals or refers to excessive preoccupancy or worry about having a serious illness ” are most likely to be affected by truth of having a serious ill or undergoing a dangerous medical operation. That’s why some doctors use lying as way of curing; they don’t try only to heal the disease, but also they make sure that the patient is in his most relaxed state, in order not to harm him. Roger Higgs in his article “On telling patients the truth” argues that doctors have no exemption from telling the truth. I other words, when a doctor lies he needs to give justifications. For the maleficence argument, Higgs argues that the truth actually does not harm; but the way the doctor tells the truth a...
Effective communication between patient and clinician is an important aspect to patient care. Proper communication has a direct positive impact on patient care and adversely poor communication has a direct negative impact on patient care. I will define the seven principles of patient-clinician communication and how I apply these communications with my patients. I will also describe the three methods currently being used to improve interdisciplinary communication and the one method that my area of practice currently uses. Then, I will explain the ethical principles that can be applied to issues in patient-clinician communication. And Lastly, the importance of ethics in communication and how patient safety is influenced by good or bad team communication.
One day while doing his job, a physician used a used swab that was possibly infected with HIV on another patient. When looked at by certain people, the doctor did the correct thing by telling his patient that he roused a swab on him/her. However, the chances of this patient getting HIV was substantially low, and he should have waited for the patient to develop symptoms, which would have been rare, before telling the truth. As stated by Michael Greenberg, “he might have done better by keeping his mouth shut.” If the doctor did lie, he could have lied to protect himself, the quality of life of the patient, and his ability to help others with their lives. If he had not told the patient that he used the swab on him/her, he/she would not have had to live in fear of getting HIV. Because of this decision of truth telling, the doctor lost his job, money, confidence, and also affected someone’s quality of life.
Deception is sometimes used by researchers when they conduct psychological experiments. Deception occurs when the participant is misled about the purpose, design, of the experiment, or when the researcher uses deliberate misleading to persuade the subject into believing a certain view (McLeod). Many people believe deception is ethically wrong, and psychologists should not use it to obtain important information. I believe psychologists should be able to use deception if the participant is not psychologically harmed. It is believed that deception is the only way we can obtain true information (Connolly). The knowledge we are able to obtain about psychological tendencies outweighs the temporary effects of deception.
Healthcare professions have codes of conduct and ethics that address the issue of honesty and trust in relation to patient encounters yet truth-telling (or being honest) versus deception (or being dishonest) has been identified as an ethical issue in hospitals, particularly about diagnosis and prognosis disclosures. Dossa (2010) defines being honest or telling the truth as relating the facts as one knows them. Furthermore, Dossa (2010) states that deception can be an act of dishonesty but also can be without lies. In other words, forms of deception include not giving any information, not giving information of the truth, withholding information, selecting what information to give and not give, and giving vague information.
Despite the frequency of verbal interactions, miscommunication of patient information occurs that can lead to patient safety issues. . . . ‘Effective communication occurs when the expertise, skills, and unique perspectives of both nurses and physicians are integrated, resulting in an improvement in the quality of patient care’ (Lindeke & Sieckert, 200...
The American Medical Association (AMA) developed a Code of Medical Ethics which includes: the patient has a right to obtain and discuss health information related to benefits, risks, and costs of treatment alternatives; patient’s can make decisions pertaining to healthcare suggested by the physician; the patient has the right to courtesy, respect, dignity, and attention to healthcare needs in a timely manner; and the patient has a right to confidentially, continuity, and adequate health care. (emedicinehealth, 2011). Communicating openly and honestly between the patient and doctor will allow both parties to make decisions to properly take care of needs.
The specific issue in questions is whether a nurse should keep the truth from their patient about their illness by respecting the wishes of the patient family or abiding by The Code of Ethics for Nurses and revealing the truth to the patient. The Code of Ethics for Nurses expresses the values and ethics of the nursing profession by stating that: Patients have the moral and legal right to determine what will be done with their own person; to be given accurate, complete, and understandable information in a manner that facilitates an informed judgment; to be assisted with weighing the benefits, burdens, and available options in their treatment, including the choice of no treatment; to accept, refuse, or terminate treatment without deceit, undue influence, pressure, intimidation, or penalty; and to be given necessary support throughout the decision-making and treatment process (The American Nurses Association, 2011). Unfortunately, truth telling to any type of patient is a common ethical dilemma: to tell the truth or to not tell the truth is the main question. Nurses have the closet relationship with patients and therefore are the ones put in a difficulty situation between their patient and the patient’s family. Who should they satisfy? Should they leave their patient in the