The Main Principles of Medical Ethics - Essay Example

"The Main Principles of Medical Ethics" is a worthy example of a paper on medical ethics.
Medical ethics is the set of ethical standards of the professional activity of healthcare workers concerning the relationship with a patient, with a patient's relatives, healthy individuals. The formation of the benevolent relation to each other, to those who need medical care or consultation, to the relatives of patients is a fundamental task of each healthcare worker (Tauber, 2005).

The main principles of medical ethics, which have to be followed by health workers, are the following:

- respect for the citizens who applied for consultation regardless of their age, gender, position in the society;

- respect for the colleagues;

- to avoid condemnation of actions (inaction) of the patient, the colleagues, officials, public servants;

- to exclude the rough, tactless, indecent attitude towards patients, their relatives, colleagues;

- under any circumstances to be benevolent to patients, their relatives, colleagues;

- to practice attentive, kind, bringing respect for patients, their relatives, colleagues irrespective of response;

- to be able to refuse if necessary a polite form;

- to recognize that there is nothing more important than patients and their health;

- under no circumstances to suggest the patient or his relatives to stop treatment for lethal outcome achievement;

- at a choice of medicine to be guided, first of all, by advantage for the patient, but not by the commercial benefit;

- under no circumstances to suggest the patient or his relatives pay with monetary or other means the services rendered at the expense of the obligatory medical insurance or the budget (Beauchamp et al, 2001).

The phrase "Patient surveys are the best way to create value-based purchasing" is very relevant because only patients can evaluate the quality of service they are provided with and report what they like and what they do not like. The healthcare service should provide people with high-quality service, especially if they pay money for that (Epstein, 2009). The cases when people pay for health-care and do not receive what they were promised, and, moreover, their health is damaged instead, should not take place. Unfortunately, such cases happen, thus, in order to avoid them, it is necessary to make surveys in every hospital in order to reveal such cases and dissatisfied patients. The best health-care organizations should be rewarded with a good reputation (Lakhan et al, 2009).

In the given case the mother of a newborn is 17 years old and does not have health insurance. The baby was born without brain function, but due to the lack of insurance, it can’t have fluid and nutrition. According to ethical principles, there is nothing more important, than patients and their health and, moreover, respect for the citizens who applied for consultation regardless of their age, gender, position in the society is important. Therefore, it is clear that withdrawal should not happen. A mother may be asked to pay for service in another way or it is necessary to apply to her parents because she is a teenager. Parents or other relatives should resolve the problem concerning the payment for the given service.