Love.Ethical Dilemma of repeat Valve replacement - Essay Example

Ethical Dilemma Ethical Dilemma Prosthetic valve dysfunction is not a natural disease but an acquired one, after patients undergo the process of Mitral Valve Replacement (MVR). It is known to occur to approximately 10% of the patients, after they undergo the first MVR (Antunes, 1992). The patients who undergo re-operations are at a high risk of not surviving. The more the patients undergo the repeat operations, the lower their chances are of surviving. The ethical issue underlying this article is that Mitral Viral Replacement (MVR) causes a disorder called the Prosthetic valve dysfunction.

This dysfunction in turn causes a need for re-operation of the patients, due to complications arising such as the structural deterioration of bioprosthesis. Though the chances of patient mortality when undergoing a repeat operation are high, there has always been re-operations to such patients (Antunes, 1992). An ethical question arises to why a patient should be re-operated, yet in so doing, the chances of that patient’s death are increased. In the subsequent operations after the first one, the causes of patient’s death changes from the structural deterioration of the bioprosthesis to valvular leak.

This is what further increases the chances of death.With such knowledge though, MVR has continued to be done over the years. Furthermore, subsequent re-operations have continued to be undertaken on patients, even though they increase their chances of death. However, the justification to this is that there are chances of saving the lives of the patients, even though such chances continues to diminish with each re-operation done (Antunes, 1992). Although performing re-operation to patients well knowing that it increases their chances of death seems unethical, there is a need to have it since the patient’s chances of surviving are increased by the re-operation, than when they are left to die of valvular leakage.

ReferencingAntunes, M. (1992). Reoperations on cardiac valves. J Heart Valve. Medical publication.