Ethics and Professionalism in Medicine-Journal - Essay Example

The task given to us was about investigating the sort of behavior the doctors and nurses integrate when dealing with patients and their families. In the discussion of healthcare, the primary features of ethical dilemmas are directly related to the provision of patient care. An initial drawback for patient is the wait they have to go through. There are rules in hospitals which state that a patient in danger of dying must be treated first. After that comes in infants and elders, thus, a patient should be willing to wait his turn which can be very frustrating.

In addition, when the time arrives to be finally seen to the doctor, the doctor is in sort of a hurry. Professionalism seems to be on the verge of being none at all in such situations. Hence, I posed a question concerning the care of the patient as to why they are neglected. The answer was that the patient is concerned about himself alone while, the doctor and the nurse also have other patients to tend to. This becomes stressful and although they try to balance it in every way there comes a time when it just slips out of their control.

Although I didn’t find this explanation helpful, it can be justifiable. Relating another example, Cindy, a nurse was confused as to why a patient was behaving the way he was but instead of stopping and asking, she thought it better to send him for his tests. As she didn’t stop and think the reason behind the patient’s particular behavior; this makes the patient defensive and unwilling in return. There can be several reasons behind verbally abusive patient; it might be the pain, a psychological aspect or it can be the injury itself.

It is important for the doctor and nurse to be aware of the patients’ weaknesses.Another aspect of ethics dangling on the borderline, I witnessed was that in some cases, the patient demanded as to why the information about him was given to his family without his consent. Or why he wasn’t aware of the disease he had. There are no steadfast rules regarding that but a viewpoint suggest that the patient has the right to know and to hold out information to anyone he want to. Here, ethics also deal with the coding that is done in order to safeguard a patient’s identity.

In the hospital, I saw that coding is better than the conventional system as it gives assurance to the patient. A particular case which stuck in my mind was that a patient was willing to go through a surgery not as yet an area of expertise for the doctor. There were high risks but the patient was adamant. They finally decided to do the surgery but professionalism was low here before their decision. This might be due to the fear of failure. Another major controversial topic I wanted to discuss was that of euthanasia.

No one was straight forward in giving the answer as some considered it ethical while others didn’t. Doctors generally agreed in accordance with the view that the best possible care be given, and so deemed it unethical. Whereas, some considered non-resuscitation a better option than euthanasia because it seems more appropriate. All in all, professionalism is that the doctor should put his patient interests above his own self-interest and ethics deal with the care giving aspect of the medicine profession.