Ethical Principles in Law - Case Study Example

Case Analysis Student’s name Code+ course name Professor’s name University name City, State Date Case study Introduction Each workplace has a culture that needs to be observed by the employees. The culture defines the way things are carried out in the organization so that to achieve a healthy working environment. These practices include the written and unwritten rules that must be followed when working (Parrott, 2014). Most of them are common under certain professions and are taught in schools. However, others are developed according to how people relate to other people and also the environment they are exposed to (Walls, and Seelman, 2014). An organization culture is made up by the following four factors: Ethics, legal practices. Professionalism and leadership. These four factors are important, especially in the medicine career (Huston, and Marquis, 2016). A nurse must fully understand and observe these factors to be successful in his or her career. Ethics are the principals that are used to define the right from the wrong. One has to weigh situation to be able to determine what is the right thing to do (Levy, and Slavin, 2013). Occasionally, doing the right thing is not easy, and one has to make sacrifices. Each profession has rules and laws that need to be followed. For example, the patient’s information should not be disclosed to the public (McGivern, Currie, Ferlie, Fitzgerald, and Waring, 2015). The legal system ensures that the work is being done in the right way. Professionalism is the competence and set of skills that define a certain line of work (Evetts, 2013). Finally, leadership is also required in the organization for the smooth running of the operations. During the nursing training, they should have full knowledge of these areas to ensure that they do their work perfectly. A case analysis can be used to help them in the application of these principles in the real world (Hancock and Algozzine, 2015). Description Mr. P had been working in the national hospital for about two years. The hospital is big, and it is divided into several divisions so that to provide specialized treatment to all the patients. There are three major sections which include: the outpatient, inpatient, and the emergency area. The outpatient deals with patients that get the treatment and then leaves. On the other hand, the inpatient has wards where hospitalized people receive treatment. The emergency division is mostly the busiest area in the hospital and requires the staff to be always ready to receive the patients and give them medical services. Most of the people who are received in this division are unstable, or they contain severe injuries that need immediate medical care. Mr. P is in charge of the medical emergency department in the hospital. His work is to ensure that every patient is received well, he takes their details and also assigns a doctor and nurse to be in charge of the patient. Working in the department is challenging, and sometimes he has to work for long hours when the patients are many, and the medical staff is not enough. One day Mr. P was working the night shift when a patient who in great pain was brought in. The patient was accompanied by his son who was in his early 20’s. As per the procedure in the department, I quickly assigned a nurse to take care of the patient before the doctor could arrive. A few details were recorded about the patient as he was being led to a comfortable bed where the doctor could administer the treatment to him. The room was full and busy of patient and attenders. Each patient had a physician or a nurse who were administering to them. The assigned doctor did not take long to get to the hall, and Mr. P directed him to the patient. The doctor did some few test and also asked the patient a few question. Beside the patient was his son who was observing everything in silence. The room was congested, and other patients could hear what the doctor was saying. After a carrying out a few test, the doctor wrote some few notes on a notebook he was holding. All that time, the two had been conversing in Arabic since the patient was not conversant with English. Everything seemed to go on well until the doctor had finished taking notes and said in a loud voice that the patient was suffering from hemorrhoids. The son was offended by the statement, and he started to shout in a loud voice. The doctor and patient’s son began to have a heated argument which was attracting the attention of most people in the room. Mr. P quickly walked to where the two were standing and asked them to go to a secluded place. First, he let the doctor explain his point of view about the situation and then he listened to the patient’s son story. The patient son claimed that hemorrhoids is a disease that is considered to be shameful to the people of their community, and it should not be addressed in public. Mr. P felt that the patient’s son was right. He explained to the doctor that disclosing the medical condition to the people in the room was unlawful and also disrespectful, and he was supposed to apologize. However, the doctor claimed that there was nothing wrong with what he did because that is how he does things. The discussion was getting out of hand, and so Mr. P took the initiative to apologize to the patient and his son. He added that the situation could not be repeated. Mr. P then assigned the patient to another doctor who took everything smoothly. The patient son was disappointed with the services that the first doctor had offered, and he wanted to raise a complaint. Therefore, Mr. P gave him some forms to fill in details about the incidence. After he was through, Mr. P wrote his report about the situation and signed. The report was forwarded to the human resource department where the fate of the doctor could be decided. A few days later, he was dismissed. A rationale for the choice of topic area. Case analysis is among the most challenging areas in nursing studies. It is because the students are supposed to take an instance and apply what they have learned (Posavac, 2015). Most situations in the real world need the application of more knowledge than even what is taught in schools (Lăzăroiu, 2015). The student will have to combine their general wit which will help him or her deal with similar cases. The topic also addresses the relationship between the medical staff and the patient which is necessary for a healthy working relationship. Most doctors and nurses do not honor the confidentiality of patient’s information (White, Krueger, Meaney, Antao, Kim, and Kwong, 2016). They expose the medical condition of the patient to the public, therefore, lowering the dignity of the patient (Latour, and Albarran, 2012). The combination of work ethics, professionalism, legal issues and leadership is essential in any workplace (Banks, and Nøhr, 2013). Most people fail to combine the four principles making it challenging to serve the people well. The medical world is a very sensitive area since it deals with the lives of individuals. Therefore, it is important for the doctors to maintain a healthy relationship so that to cultivate a good level of trust. A critical review of the literature Researches and studies have been conducted in the past on application on similar case analysis (Soy, 2015). In the case study above, the doctor has broken almost all the four principles. Firstly, the health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) states that the patients’ medical record should be kept confidential unless he or she want it to be disclosed (McGraw, 2013). These are global laws that are supposed to be followed by every state in the world. Exposing the medical records of a patient can lead to the doctor being jailed or even losing his or her medical certificate (Rho, Jang, Chung, and Choi, 2015). The doctor in the case study disclosed the disease the patient is suffering from, therefore breaking the law and should be punished for his actions (Thomas, 2014). Ethics are defined by the moral theory which is the mechanism of assessing if an action is right or wrong. The theory suggests that one should weigh the morality of an action depending on its effects (Wagoner, 2014). If the effects are negative, then the action is unethical. The doctor could have used the theory to weigh if his actions were morally upright. Disclosing the patient’s medical information would hurt the patient. Therefore, the action should not be considered to be ethical (Wynia, Papadakis, Sullivan, and Hafferty, 2014). Leadership is also evaluated in the case study. Leadership gives the direction that should be followed to achieve the set goals and objectives of the organization. Different leaders use various methods to provide guidance. The most common styles that are used include; democracy, dictatorship, and Laissez-faire (Giltinane, 2013). Democratic leadership is when the leader accepts help from other people. The workers suggest ways to improve the organization or even to make changes and the leader address the issue. It is the most acceptable form of leadership since people feel honored and valued when working in the organization (Taylor, and Wang, 2012). Laissez-faire is another kind of leadership where the leader gives the employees power to make decision and changes. The leader is just present to supervise, but the employees are allowed to as the find fit for the organization (Lankshear, Kerr, Laschinger, and Wong, 2013). Finally, dictatorship is also used by other leaders. They make decisions alone without consulting anyone. This kind of leadership is one way, and the leaders control everything that is being done in the organization (Bhatti, Maitlo, Shaikh, Hashmi, and Shaikh, 2012). All these styles of leadership can be applied in a hospital situation to help offer better management. Mr. P does not use any particular style of leadership, which has made it challenging to manage the services that are being offered in the hospital. Alternative solution The situation could be better if the management and also the doctor could improve the structure of the building. Every patient is entitled to privacy during treatment (Tummers and Knies, 2015). Therefore, the room could be separated to ensure that every patient enjoys privacy. On the other hand, the doctors could have different rooms where they will be treating the patients without the third-party eavesdropping. A separate room could ensure that the medical condition of the patient remains private between the doctor and the patient. Ethics and professionalism are lacking in the work since the doctor admits that’s how he does his work. The doctor does not know some of the fundamental laws in the field of medicine. The hospital staff should have refresher course regularly to ensure that they still remember what they learned in schools. Some of the rules such as not disclosing the patient’s information should be written somewhere in the hospital to ensure that everyone understands it. The hospital should send an apology letter to the patient. The gesture will be to show that the hospital recognizes that doctor’s actions were wrong, and that is not how they do their things. For a change to be successful, there must be a good leadership in place to ensure that everything is running well. A good leadership system ensures that everyone in the organization is satisfied with the services being offered and also the change has benefits to the firm (Huber, 2013). Mr. P should use a democratic form of leadership to manage the emergency section. It involves getting frequent feedback from both the employees and the patients on ways that can be used to improve the services being offered. The patients can be requested to fill in a questionnaire to rate the level of services and also to report any bad behavior they observed (Singh, Fishman, Rich, and Orlowski, 2013). On the other hand, the doctors and nurses can fill in a questionnaire indicating changes they would like to be implemented for them to work comfortably. Leadership role and strategies to achieve the solution. Leadership is the pillar of any organization. If it is good, the business will succeed (Grant, 2016). The functions of leadership are to guide, to set goals and objectives, to delegate duties, to coordinate a team, to monitor progress, to make necessary changes, and to solve any misunderstanding. A leader should guide the rest of the employees into doing the best to achieve the organizational goals. The best way to guide them is leading by example (Goethals, Allison, Kramer, and Messick, 2014. On the other hand, the employees need to be motivated to work hard. A leader should set the departmental goals and objectives that should be achieved when working. These goals provide extrinsic motivation to the employees to work more (Daniel and Gabriela, 2013). The workers should work as a team. Therefore, it is the duty of a leader to delegate roles to the team and also coordinate them. Sometimes a leader is expected to make changes to the way things are being done in the department based on the results. These changes are made primarily to ensure that the most competent people are working in their area of specialization so that to maximum the output (Daft, 2014). Finally, during crises and misunderstandings, it is the role of the leader to find lasting solutions. These are roles and strategies that are meant for the organization to achieve better results. When the roles are carried out efficiently, they become the best strategy to run the organization (Chhokar, Brodbeck, and House, 2013). Mr. P is a good leader based on the actions he took during the incidence. He first delegated duties to professionals to ensure that the patients were getting the best treatment. When the patient was not satisfied with services the doctor was offering them, Mr. P quickly made the changes. During the misunderstanding, the leader simply listens to both sides before making the decision. However, Mr. P fails in some of the roles like monitoring the progress of the staff and motivating them. When the doctor says that he is used to behaving like that, it shows that Mr. P had not been keen enough to know the bad behavior of the team members. The team working in the emergency department was not motivated to working hard and providing high-level services. Conclusion In conclusion, it is evident that for a healthy working environment to be achieved, the employees must ensure they upheld work ethics, professionalism, good leadership and also have full knowledge of the legal system. These four factors form the basic foundation for any business that wants to succeed. The case study represents a real life scenario that is common in most hospitals. Students who are familiar with the case studies find it easy to deal with such situations in the real world. The students are expected to consider all the four factors before making any decision. 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Wynia, M.K., Papadakis, M.A., Sullivan, W.M. and Hafferty, F.W., 2014. More than a list of values and desired behaviors: A foundational understanding of medical professionalism. Academic Medicine, 89(5), pp.712-714. Read More