Issues in sports 2 - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... 2. The issue of performance-enhancing drugs has been created in medicine and sport to ensure fair-play. It is considered vital that athletes should compete on a level playing field, on equal grounds, with the same advantages and liabilities provided to players from opposing teams. To articulate and enforce the concept of fair-play, there are anti-doping policies which prevent the use of performance-enhancing drugs. The use of these drugs goes against the rules of sports and is viewed as cheating (Kayser et al 2).
3. Management of the issue of performance-enhancing drugs is through the “physician involved in the athlete’s health supervision” (Kayser et al 9). The established ethics of the medical profession dictates that the physician’s role should be one of preserving the athlete’s autonomy. This is required to be done by maintaining a balance between ensuring the treatment leads to the highest degree of present and future health, while concurrently permitting the athlete to maintain a preferred life style. Principles of good practice for the role of sports physicians is an ethically rigorous need that has to be fulfilled. For this, employing independent physicians with status comparable to other sports officials, is possibly the best strategy for developing good practice.
4. The ways in which the above management action will affect the sport and society at large is an important aspect of the issue of performance-enhancing drugs. In contemporary times sports are increasingly significant for economic and political reasons. Elite sport is a self-sustaining enterprise, with extensive financial returns from “advertisement, media and audience revenues” (Kayser et al 9). Doping control cannot be considered as an internal matter of the sports community, since considerable public funds as well as governmental resources are provided for sports, for the purpose of health promotion and other sound reasons. ...Download file to see next pagesRead More