Ethical Conflicts in the Medical Field - Essay Sample

Introduction

Doctors and medical practitioners involve themselves in ethical conflicts as they have to ensure they act in favor of the patients and ensure the safety of the patients involved. The vignette case study is about medical cases and how medical students work to understand the patients and interpret their problems. This helps reduce the eruption of ethical conflicts in the workplace, as ethics guides all medical practitioners. They have to adhere to them to ensure they don't breach the trust of the patients.

Abstract

Arriving at these results in the vignette case, an analysis was done and it showed that active participation is required for decisions being made in the organization. Choices were not to be made on a personal basis when a team was involved (Bryan, 2019). This was to ensure that all factors were considered, and no ethical conflict arose. An excellent example of moral conflict in an organization is the boss asking for documents to be terminated to hide evidence of a case. This act is unethical whether an action is taken or not. In the vignette case, Dr. Icarus violated a lot of ethical considerations as he was not supposed to carry out an experiment with apparatus that have not been approved by the board and without the consent of the patient and collogues.

Case Study Description

The vignette was conducted by residents in the medical school in which they were to analyze the historical results and previous experiments. They were then expected to give information to the management on the issues they found not being addressed well in their area of practice. Feedbacks from the vignettes were obtained through email, and discussions were held in a group to be able to deduce the vital information that would be of help to the organization.

In light of the above, the doctor violates so many ethical considerations when it comes to ethical practices set up by the IRB. First, she put the health and safety of her apparatus at risk as the IRB rejects the proposal and she opts to quit her trials rather than inform her colleagues about her decision. However, keeping the truth from the colleague means that the latter made choices that were not carefully thought, which, therefore, might have led to their demise. As a result, Dr. Icarus violated the ethical consideration concerning informing the volunteers why her trials were banned and ensure they make informed decisions as a result. Secondly, Dr. Icarus ought to have consulted her colleagues in whether she was right to conduct a trial that was not approved by the IRB. As such, she made an unethical decision to keep her trial a secret instead of getting advice from experienced colleagues.

The vignette case took three months for completion. The residents were great full in that they achieved their good. They were also satisfied as they took part in the preparation and presentation of the vignette case. They were involved in discussions, although the case consumed more time than planned. The vignette case allows the students to apply their general knowledge in their areas of practice and think not around books.

The Ethical Conflict

Ethical conflict occurs when a team member makes a decision that is likely to affect the third party. Doctors have to ensure the safety of the patient by all means, and thus when it comes to violating some of the ethics, they cannot evade (Eckardt, 2019). They have to consider the kins' opinion and explain to them why a violation is the only way to help the patient. Dr. Icarus was involved in a case where she had violated most of the ethical considerations when she decided to carry out an experiment with medicine that had not been approved by the board.

An ethical conflict at the workplace occurs when an employee is forced to prioritize one ethical principle over another one. This leads to conflicting ideas as one will crash against another, and there could be unfavorable outcomes after the decision is arrived at. Sometimes it is hard to evade this kind of situation, but at other times they are solved in the interest of the third party or the organization (Bryan, 2019). Dr. Icarus' case violated medical ethics as in her experiments; she put a risk to the experiment apparatus and did not consider any of her colleagues' opinions. This led her to be taken to court for choosing to keep her unethical decisions a secret instead of asking for a view from the teammates.

Various conditions need to be considered when resolving ethical conflicts. These factors include the investor's interests, stakeholder's interests and the customer's interests (Eckardt, 2019). The main aim of why the organization is run is because of the customer and thus their loyalty should be cherished. Ethical conflicts should be resolved as early as possible to prevent the arising of other conflicts in the organization. Those involved in this ethical conflict should be made to understand why they should avoid such mistakes in the future and how such cases should be handled. When dealing with Dr. Icarus case, these factors were considered to ensure that all interests were considered and that no one felt inferior

Ethical Principles

General principles are always aspiration in nature. The laws aim to guide and inspire psychologists or medical personalities towards the very highest ethical ideals that exist within their profession (Campbell, 2016). The APA codes of principles as explained below include;

Principle A: Principle and Nonmaleficence

The above principle guides doctors and other medical practitioners to perform work that benefits other people. However, as they help other people, the principles caution not to hurt others in the process. Doctors and medical practitioners are advised to remain aware of their influence on society. Their actions have potential consequences on individuals and groups that they come into contact with.

Principle B: Fidelity and Responsibility

The above principle recommends that doctors and medical practitioners have to cultivate a professional and scientific environment. They have to create trust, accountability, and ethical consideration between them, their patients, their colleagues, and whoever is within their service. Doctors, medical practitioners, and psychologists are bound to serving the immediate community by their way of the profession.

Principle C: The Principle of Integrity

The integrity principle aims at ensuring that the medics engage in honest and transparent practices. A practitioner is not expected to participate in any training suspected to be malicious. The exploitative deception is not appropriate, and medics are asked to mitigate the moment they get knowledge of any deceptive measures.

Principle D: The Principle of Justice

It recommends that each medical practitioner, doctors included should remain aware of any biases. Their level of competence should only be limited to particular expertise; that way, they are bound to prevent unjust practices even from their colleagues.

Principle E: Principle of Respect for People's Rights and Dignity

The law mentioned above acknowledges that each patient and individuals have the right to privacy and confidentiality. Through respecting each of the patient's confidentiality and privacy medics by default acknowledges that their clients are of worth and should not be discriminated based on factors concerning gender, race, religion, or any other factor.

Justification of the Highlighted Moral Principle

Analyzing from the case study, the ethical conflict interferes with principle B, the law of fidelity, and trust. The policy recommends that the doctor should cultivate a professional environment (Firmin, DeWitt, Smith, Ellis, & Tiffan, 2018). The doctor failed to involve her colleagues during her laboratory experiment shows that she is trustworthy and accountable. Interfering with trust and accountability to her colleagues is an ethical dilemma to be addressed.

Ethical Standards

Ethical standards are ten enforceable rules applicable to psychologists, doctors, and others involved in the medical practice (Campbell, 2016). They are analyzed in broadly to help address situations that most psychologists and doctors in their professional roles go through. The ethical standards include;

Resolving Ethical Issues

This is the first part of the APA ethical standards. The section is designed broadly to guide psychologists and doctors through a variety of ethical issues and how they can deal with each one of them. It focuses on approaches, laws, sections, and resolutions of dealing with and reporting ethical violations. It protects those involved in an ethics-related investigation while also providing punishment for culprits.

Competence

The competence part of ethical standards is defined to help psychologists and others within the same area understand their functional capabilities. With the correct operational capabilities, they can deal with different clients, patients, and people who might fall out of their sphere of expertise.

Human Relations

The human relations section of the ethical standards is a guidance document that addresses situations of how psychologists and doctors can deal with people in helping and related fields and how they work. It is a principle that limits detrimental verbal and non-verbal harassment within the workplace environment.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Privacy and confidentiality part of ethical standards is written to make psychologists understand privacy and respect for clients and patients. Only when matters of law or national concerns arise it is when it becomes advisable for psychologist and doctors to share information. This section thereby provides ways on how psychologists and doctors provide information within different levels of confidentiality.

Advertising and Public Statements

The named section of ethical conduct addresses how psychologists should make public their statements and their practices. The article outlines ways in which psychologists can avoid false and deceptive statements while building their businesses known. It also advises on how to deal with fraudulent and misleading statements made by psychologists while trying to win more clients.

Record Keeping and Fees

Record keeping and fees ethical standard mainly focuses on how psychologist should maintain records of professional and scientific work. The section stresses the importance of keeping records as they can be used for future researches. It also advises on the fees that clients should pay for services rendered to them. Most importantly, this section of the ethical standard suggests a psychologist who should not hold back patient records for personal interest or failure to pay.

Education and Training

The culture and training ethical standard necessitates with quality the extent to which future psychologists receive appropriate knowledge and practice. The specification creates education and training programs that qualify one to be psychologists or a doctor in the same line.

Research and Publication

The above mentioned ethical standard is developed to highlight standards that psychologists are expected to meet as they conduct analyses. The emphasis s is placed on the need for an institution to approve research, confirm its accuracy, and analyze its potential risks.

Assessment

The assessment part of the ethical standards guides how to interpret test results. It also includes advice on how to explain test findings to patients and procedures that follow. It is also the part where the security and integrity of the test results are protected.

Therapy

The therapy section is the ethical section that recommends the kind of treatment that a patient should be accorded. The psychologist should provide s...