Applying Ethical Principles Case Study

Applying Ethical Principles Case Study

Healthcare professionals work in complex settings that always put the fundamental ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice to test at every point in the care delivery process. This article reviews and analyses the case study “Genetic Testing and Patient Autonomy” involving Mrs. Clara Bennett, her husband, Lt. Jack Bennett, and Dr. Leonard Harper using the Ethical Decision-Making Model to identify and resolve the ethical problem presented in the case study.

Summary of Facts in Case Study

Dr. Leonard Harper is a seasoned geneticist at Hillside Medical Center and an adherent advocate for patient autonomy. Mrs. Clara Bennett, a 38-year-old literature professor, approaches Dr. Leonard Harper, seeking prenatal genetic testing to determine if her unborn child has any genetic disorders. She is concerned that her child may have a genetic disorder due to her age and a family history of genetic anomalies. The test results show that Clara’s unborn child has a high likelihood of having Down syndrome. During a private consultation meeting, distressed Clara asks Dr. Harper to withhold the results from her husband, Lt. Jack Bennett, stationed overseas, who is eagerly awaiting his first child, with concerns over how the news would impact his demanding and dangerous job. This scenario creates a major ethical dilemma in which Dr. Harper has to choose between respecting Clara’s autonomy and respecting the importance of open communication in decision-making and family dynamics.

Analysis of Ethical Issues in the Case Study

Various scenarios in the case present major ethical issues and dilemmas to Dr. Harper. First, a major ethical issue that Dr. Harper faces is respecting his patient’s autonomy and considering the need for family dynamics in medical decision-making. In this case, Dr. Harper has to weigh in between going by Clara’s request to withhold the health concerns of her unborn child from her husband and the need to inform and include the father of the concerns of their unborn child and related medical decisions. Secondly, Dr. Harper faces an ethical issue of beneficence and nonmaleficence whether or not he withholds the information from Lt. Jack Bennett. In this case, withholding the information benefits Clara at the moment as she is less worried about her husband’s health. Viewing the information from Jack’s perspective, this can be considered as incidental information. Basically, disclosing such information can be viewed as a breach of one’s right “not to know,” while it can also be considered a violation of an individual’s right to know (Ewuoso et al., 2021). This means withholding information may lead to mental and emotional harm to Jack when he comes to learn of the health issues of his unborn child and may further delay the delivery of special care to the unborn child, which has the potential for more future harm to the baby. In return, this violates the nonmaleficence principle. Most importantly, arguing on a need-to-know basis, Dr. Harper must obtain Clara’s consent before disclosing the information to Lt. Jack Bennett to avoid breaching patient autonomy and breaking the doctor-patient relationship. Regardless of the view, it denies Jack, the father, the right to know, which also breaches the transparency principle in healthcare information governance.

The ethical challenges develop due to the risk of the unborn child having the risk of being born with a genetic disorder due to Clara’s age and her family’s history of genetic anomalies. It is also due to the distance between Clara and her husband, Jack’s occupation, and Clara’s request to the doctor to withhold information from Jack. Clara is worried that Jack has been eagerly awaiting their first child, and the thought of a child with Down syndrome would break him. She wants the doctor to withhold this health information from her husband as it would stress him further as his job is also stressful. All these factors and situations contribute to the development of the ethical challenge Dr. Harper faces.

Application of Components of the Ethical Decision-Making Model

The three components of the ethical decision-making model are moral awareness, moral judgment, and ethical behavior (Johnson et al., 2021). Moral awareness means appreciating the existence of an ethical issue in a case, while moral judgment means a choice between right and wrong. On the other hand, ethical behavior is informed by moral awareness and moral judgment and means settling for the right choice to solve the ethical issue.

Dr. Harper expresses moral awareness as he understands the ethical dilemma and complexity of the situation. He considers the ethical conflict arising from the need to respect Clara’s autonomy, withholding crucial information from Jack, family dynamics in making medical decisions, and the impact of withholding the information on the family dynamics and its impact on the medical care of the unborn child. Dr. Harper has to express moral judgment by evaluating the consequences of each possible decision, including the impact of withholding the health information from Jack, respecting patient autonomy, breaking Jack and Clara’s marriage, and future medical decisions. Finally, Dr Harper’s ethical behavior will be determined by the decisions he makes, considering respect for his patient’s autonomy, transparency in information governance, withholding information and family dynamics, and considering the ethics of beneficence and justice regarding the unborn child’s future health.

Effectiveness of the Communication Approaches Present in the Case Study

Communication in healthcare settings, as in the case of Dr. Harper and Clara, is an essential determinant of care outcomes and patient satisfaction with the care delivered, as discussed by Tiperneni et al. (2022). There are various instances in the case study where the aspects of effective communication are displayed. For instance, Dr. Harper has expressed the importance of active listening as he took time to understand Mrs. Clara Bennett’s health concerns for her unborn child and why she requested to withhold the information from her husband. Listening and expressing kindness is the first step towards establishing good patient-doctor relations and is key in providing emotional support to patients with complex health needs (Bradshaw et al., 2022). At the same time, Clara opening up to the doctor over her concerns about her husband’s well-being shows she understands the need for open communication in healthcare settings. However, the need to withhold information from Jack does not amount to effective communication in healthcare as it not only puts Dr. Harper in a situation where he faces major ethical challenges arising from the case. Therefore, the outcomes of the case can be improved by embracing open communication. Dr. Harper needs to fully explain to Mrs. Bennett the nature of the consequences of withholding such information from her husband may have on their marriage and the future health of the child.

Effectiveness of the Professional Approach Used in the Case Study

The current professional approaches Dr. Harper adopts can be noted to be effective and lead to effective care. For instance, based on the ethical decision model’s component of moral awareness, Dr. Harper first appreciates the ethical challenge he faces as he respects Clara’s autonomy and her right to decide when and how the information is shared. Secondly, he believes in open communication in cases involving families and decision-making. It is clear that by his worry for family relationships and the future medical care of the child, if he withholds such information regarding the health of the unborn child, Dr. Harper will most definitely make the right moral judgment. Additionally, since he demonstrates moral awareness of the ethical dilemma, his professional approaches are more likely to be guided by moral judgments that mostly likely help him resolve the ethical issue.

Applying Ethical Principles to Resolve the Ethical Issue in the Case Study

The proposed solution to help inform Dr. Harper’s ethical behavior and improve the effectiveness of the approaches to resolve the ethical challenge he faces is to employ a collaborative approach to obtain Clara’s consent to inform her husband. This solution can be informed by considering and applying ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. First, since Dr. Harper must respect Clara Benett’s autonomy, a collaborative approach with a family counselor can help Clara understand the weight of the case to future family relationships. Dr. Harper can also explain to her the need to inform Lt. Jack Benett regarding future medical care of the child and family dynamics in medical decisions. This way, he will be able to obtain her informed consent. Additionally, Dr. Harper needs to consider the conflict between the principle of beneficence and nonmaleficence. Although beneficence is only concerned with the best interests of the patient and all care must be designed to meet the best interests of the patient, it is important to note that the principle of nonmaleficence is based on weighing care against all benefits, risks, and consequences to determine the best treatment for the patient (Girdler et al., 2019). Ideally, providing the patient with the best care that meets their medical interests can cover the patient’s best interests. This makes the principle of nonmaleficence a priority to consider over autonomy in order to achieve beneficence. Therefore, Dr. Harper must consider the long-term harm to Mrs. Clara Bennett, Lt. Jack Benett, their relationship, and the medical needs of the unborn child and align his decisions with the principles of nonmaleficence and beneficence in the long term.

Conclusion

Consent and patient autonomy will always create ethical conflicts with beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice principles. The ethical challenge Dr. Harper faces when dealing with the case involving Mrs. Clara Benett can be resolved by basing all decisions on the ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice to navigate the issue. Conclusively, healthcare professionals are expected to continuously assess health cases and situations from an ethical perspective to ensure that all care decisions align with the patient’s ethical principles and best interests.

References

Bradshaw, J., Siddiqui, N., Greenfield, D., & Sharma, A. (2022). Kindness, listening, and connection: Patient and clinician key requirements for emotional support in chronic and complex care. Journal of Patient Experience, 9. https://doi.org/10.1177/23743735221092627

Ewuoso, C., Hall, S., & Dierickx, K. (2021). How do healthcare professionals respond to ethical challenges regarding information management? A review of empirical studies. Global Bioethics, 32(1), 67–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/11287462.2021.1909820

Girdler, S. J., Girdler, J. E., Tarpada, S. P., & Morris, M. T. (2019). Nonmaleficence in medical training: Balancing patient care and efficient education. Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, 4(2). https://doi.org/10.20529/IJME.2018.100

Johnson, M. K., Weeks, S. N., Peacock, G. G., & Domenech Rodríguez, M. M. (2021). Ethical decision-making models: A taxonomy of models and review of issues. Ethics and Behavior, 32(3), 195–209. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508422.2021.1913593

Tiperneni, R., Patel, S., Heis, F., Ghali, S., Du, D., Ghali, W., Russo, L., & Granet, K. (2022). HCAHPS: Having constant communication augments hospital and patient satisfaction. BMJ Open Quality, 11(4), e001972. https://doi.org/10.1136/BMJOQ-2022-001972

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Develop a solution to a specific ethical dilemma faced by a healthcare professional by applying ethical principles. Describe the issues and a possible solution in a paper of 3-5 pages.

Applying Ethical Principles Case Study

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Introduction
Whether you are a nurse, a public health professional, a health care administrator, or in another role in the health care field, you must base your decisions on a set of ethical principles and values. Your decisions must be fair, equitable, and defensible. Each discipline has established a professional code of ethics to guide ethical behavior. In this assessment, you will practice working through an ethical dilemma as described in a case study. Your practice will help you develop a method for formulating ethical decisions.

Instructions
Note: The requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. At a minimum, be sure to address each point. In addition, you are encouraged to review the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.

For this assessment, develop a solution to a specific ethical dilemma faced by a healthcare professional. In your assessment:

Select one of the case studies presented in the Assessment 03 Supplement: Applying Ethical Principles [PDF] Download Assessment 03 Supplement: Applying Ethical Principles [PDF]resource.
Note: The case study may not supply all of the information you need. In such cases, you should consider a variety of possibilities and infer potential conclusions. However, please be sure to identify any assumptions or speculations you make.
Summarize the facts in the selected case study and use the three components of an ethical decision-making model to analyze an ethical problem or issue and the factors that contributed to it.
Identify which case study you selected and briefly summarize the facts surrounding it. Identify the problem or issue that presents an ethical dilemma or challenge and describe that dilemma or challenge.
Identify who is involved or affected by the ethical problem or issue.
Access the Ethical Decision-Making Model media piece and use the three components of the ethical decision-making model (moral awareness, moral judgment, and ethical behavior) to analyze the ethical issues.
Apply the three components outlined in the Ethical Decision-Making Model media.
Analyze the factors that contributed to the ethical problem or issue identified in the case study.
Describe the factors that contributed to the problem or issue and explain how they contributed.
Apply academic peer-reviewed journal articles relevant to an ethical problem or issue as evidence to support an analysis of the case.
In addition to the readings provided, use the Capella Library to locate at least one academic peer-reviewed journal article relevant to the problem or issue that you can use to support your analysis of the situation. The NHS-FPX4000: Developing a Health Care Perspective Library Guide will help you locate appropriate references. You will select at least one current scholarly or academic peer-reviewed journal articles published during the past 3–5 years that relate to your topic.
Cite and apply key principles from the journal article as evidence to support your critical thinking and analysis of the ethical problem or issue.
Review the Think Critically About Source Quality resource.
Assess the credibility of the information source.
Assess the relevance of the information source.
Discuss the effectiveness of the communication approaches present in a case study.
Describe how the health care professional in the case study communicated with others.
Assess instances where the professional communicated effectively or ineffectively.
Explain which communication approaches should be used and which ones should be avoided.
Describe the consequences of using effective and non-effective communication approaches.
Discuss the effectiveness of the approach used by a professional to deal with problems or issues involving ethical practice in a case study.
Describe the actions taken in response to the ethical dilemma or issue presented in the case study.
Summarize how well the professional managed professional responsibilities and priorities to resolve the problem or issue in the case.
Discuss the key lessons this case provides for health care professionals.
Apply ethical principles to a possible solution to an ethical problem or issue described in a case study.
Describe the proposed solution.
Discuss how the approach makes this professional more effective or less effective in building relationships across disciplines within his or her organization.
Discuss how likely it is the proposed solution will foster professional collaboration.
Write clearly and logically, with correct use of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.
Apply the principles of effective composition.
Determine the proper application of the rules of grammar and mechanics.
Write using APA style for in-text citations, quotes, and references.
Determine the proper application of APA formatting requirements and scholarly writing standards.
Integrate information from outside sources into academic writing by appropriately quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing, following APA style.