Ethics Within Different Professions - Article Example

? Review of the Literature 25th April Review of Literature Introduction Ethics within different professions encompass the required personal standards when undertaking work related responsibilities. The general application of professional skills and knowledge in delivering services to the public constitute professional ethics. While ethics remain fundamental in almost all professions, various ethical elements only apply to particular profession. Several discrete components could be identified as generally constituting professional ethics including, honesty, respectfulness, obedience to the law among others. These components remain applicable to different professions, but specific professions have ethical values governed by prevailing legal elements within the profession. While some professions remain generally governed by internal regulation, other professions, like nursing and midwifery, have statutory bodies regulating professional ethical conduct. Ethical issues in healthcare profession Contrary to other professions, the healthcare professional ethics are governed by statutory bodies. These bodies impose an element of legality within the professional ethics. The close relationships between these elements create significant difficulty of separating malpractices based on ethical values and those related to legal values. The healthcare professional ethics become complicated by the inclusion of numerous statutory laws, professional regulations and expected high standards of practice. Ethical issues within the profession become intertwined within the numerous legal elements governing operating standards, expected by the society from medical professionals. While certain elements remain legal within the provisions of law, ethical factors could contradict numerous undertaking of the medical profession. Abortion, for example, is legal within many American jurisdictions; however, performing abortion might appear unethical because of the attributed societal concerns (Greenwood, 2012). Confidentiality This issue remains both ethical and legal within the medical profession. Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPAA) Act of 1996, privacy rule requires medical professionals to maintain confidentiality of a patient’s medical information. Ethically, information shared between a patient and doctor should remain confined within their knowledge. Medical professionals could be legally sued for allowing leakage of such information. Deliberate release of this information could amount to unethical practice, but could also initiate litigation from the aggrieved party (Wafa, 2010). This information could, however, be mistakenly released from confining information centers resulting in legal action being undertaken against the medical professional involved. Though there are legal elements concerning information confidentiality, healthcare professional are never administered with legal oaths of confidentiality. The lack of legally binding agreements to confidentiality, places the issue within ethical boundaries. Healthcare professional remain ethically bound to these legislative measures concerning various ethical practices. The major advantage of this legal and ethical element remains the ability for public members to initiate legal action against medical practitioners. The need to avoid litigation processes could enhance better confidentiality within the healthcare profession. Should mistakes occur, leading to leakage of such information, the medical professionals’ careers become risky. Lawsuits against doctors could have adverse effects on reputation of doctors; hence affect their abilities in delivering or undertaking similar healthcare operations. While medical professions become careful in maintaining confidentiality, instances breaching the confidentiality could become career-destroying moments. Malpractice This could be defined as an element of both legal and ethical practice factors. Malpractice borders between legal and ethical elements within medical profession. Within the legal framework, malpractice constitutes tort caused by breach of duty, resulting into injury or individuals suffering significant damage. The damages resulting from medical malpractice remain catastrophic as patients could easily die. Legal terms define medical malpractice as negligence which results in treatment falling below accepted practical standards of the profession. Injuries or damages resulting from malpractice normally involve medical errors, resulting from faulty equipment, or substandard medical products. The medical malpractice process continues to present surmountable risks to patients who might become victims of malpractice. Common injuries and damages include death and severe injuries sustained by individuals. Doctors can initiate defensive medicine when presenting defense against malpractice claims presented in lawsuits. The malpractice torts have contributed to development of professional liability insurance policies. These policies are aimed at offsetting litigation costs and risks resulting from medical malpractice lawsuits. The issue of malpractice becomes categorized under tort law in normal litigation processes. The problem presented by malpractice on medical professionals remains the probability of having lawsuits filed under obscure circumstance. Cases where patients suffer injuries during treatment are all classified as medical malpractices. While legal definition requires malpractice to prove the participation of a professional in resulting injuries, within the medical situation malfunctioning of equipment could initiate litigation against involved professionals (Jena et al., 2011). This becomes a major setback in the litigation process as the fault causing injuries might sometimes result from equipment as opposed to the popular assumption of responsibility upon the doctor. During medical malpractice lawsuits, doctors become completely liable for damages and injuries incurred during treatment processes. This remains a major shortfall of the malpractice legal and ethical element. Consent Consent could be defined as the instrument of mutual communication occurring between patient and doctor, seeking to provide authority for particular action by medical professionals (Shahi, Geeta, & Rajput, 2009). Many surgical operations require patients’ consent before being undertaken. The consent sought by medical professionals remains an element of ethical values and legal elements combined. Previously, patients required to produce either implied or expressed consent for doctors to perform surgical operations. This has changed significantly following introduction of informed consent where patients must be informed properly, of the underlying consequences and effects of the intended operation. Legal regulations require medical professionals to acquire informed consent from clients before undertaking any surgical operation. The informed consent becomes a point to refer in the occurrence of disputes regarding the operation in future. Obtaining of consents enables the doctors to provide patients with sufficient information regarding the possible outcomes of the process (Shahi, Geeta, & Rajput, 2009).this process becomes essential in ensuring patients have sufficient knowledge and sometimes counseling, regarding the effects of intended operations. Doctors are also offered an opportunity to explain to patients the involved risks. This explanation could surmount into defense under litigation procedures. Doctors could present arguments based on the patients’ knowledge of the prevailing dangers, from information supplied by professional healthcare officers, seeking consent from the patient. Failure by doctors to seek consent could result in lawsuits if problems occur at later stages. Written consents remain the most viable method of establishing the presence of consent. While consent remains a fundamental element before undertaking surgical operations, expressed consent cannot be proved in legal settings. Medical ethics recognize the need to acquire patient’s consent through any available method. Implied and expressed consent, however, cannot be substantiated in a law court during litigation processes. This creates a surmountable challenge to medical professionals when fulfilling the obligation of acquiring legal consent. The doctors must acquire consent through methods that can be substantiated within law courts. Conclusion The medical profession faces numerous challenges regarding differentiation between ethical and legal elements of the systems. Some ethical elements contain regulatory statutes which govern their execution, consequently initiating the probability of lawsuits based on ethical values. Contrary to other professions, the medical professional ethics could become the basis of seeking legal redress for damages incurred following unethical processes. Ethics within other professions remain elements for monitoring and ensuring standards within practical issues. Healthcare workers, therefore, need to remain considerate of ethical issues during work, to limit cases being sued. Adherence to ethical values remains closely linked with adherence to prevailing regulations and laws (Butts & Rich, 2008). Numerous regulation within the medical profession are drafted from existing ethical values; hence the close relationship between medical ethics and medical law. References Butts, J. B., & Rich, K. L. (2008). Nursing ethics across the curriculum and into practice . Sunbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett. Greenwood, B. (2012, March 4). Legal & Ethical Issues that Health Care Professionals Face. The Houston Chronicle. Jena, A., Seabury, S., Lakdawalla, D., & Chandra, A. (2011). Malpractice risk according to physician specialty. New England Journal of Medicine, 629-36. Shahi, K., Geeta, B., & Rajput, P. (2009). Consent In Surgical Practice: A brief review. The Internet Journal of Surgery. Wafa, T. (2010). How the Lack of Prescriptive Technical Granularity in HIPAA Has Compromised Patient Privacy. Northern Illinois University Law Review. Read More