Healthcare Ethics: Tonya Archer's Case Study

Introduction

Healthcare ethics is a topic of discussion, for there are four main ethical concerns in this profession. They include autonomy, non-maleficence, justice, and beneficence. Each of these carries a lot of weight in the medical world (Rogers & Kelly, 2011). This paper analyses Tonya Archer's case study concerning the principles that guide professionalism in healthcare.

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Ethics in Tonya’s Case Handling

Tonya Archer's case is an example of a medical situation that required the intervention of medical practitioners that subscribe to many principles and tenets. The principles of healthcare ethics that are philosophical foundations of my view in light of Tonya Archer's case are; The principle of autonomy, which gives Tonya the right to take control of her body and retain it. The move by profession is fine provided there is no evidence of any form of coercion or any form of persuasion, making the patient make an influenced choice. As much as the medical officer believes that the choices that they give work in the best interest of Tonya, they have no legal ground to coerce.

After surgery, Tonya undergoes brain damage, and the doctor persuades the parents to allow them to take her off the ventilator because they feel they know that this would work in the interest of Tonya. Despite claiming that they understand the gravity of the accident that Tonya had, they are blatantly undermining autonomy where the parents have the right to first subscribe to the options that the doctors are going for. However, the doctors are violating this principle and want Tonya's parents to allow them to do what they feel is right for Tonya. Moreover, the parents' refusal is justified, for they fear the outcome of the doctors' decision. To the parents, Tonya is not dead, for her body is still warm.

However, the medical officers are observing the principle of beneficence since they have tried to do all they could to safeguard Tonya's life. Th only discouraging bit is that they do not give the parents any hope and are not ready to go a step beyond to ensure that they save Tonya's life despite the accident. This ties them to the course because the parents are not satisfied with the explanations; they are getting from the doctors.

Moreover, their choice to remove the ventilator shows that they are not ready to apply other procedures and treatments, meaning they lack the goodwill and intention of satisfying the parents to their patients. Lack of knowledge that when someone dies, their body becomes cold and not as warm as Tonya's as the parents are claiming, shows that they lack adequate skills and best medical practices. If a parent they handled previously having similar conditions did not survive the brain damage, it is not ethical for them to assume that Tonya's case will be similar. What did not work on a previous parent might work on another (De Roubaix, 2011).

More so, non-maleficence is undermined by Tonya's doctors for their decision might harm Tonya, which goes against the tenets of this principle. It propagates the idea of making decisions that do not harm the patient. Removing the ventilator will have adverse effects on Tonya, and might even lead to her death.

Finally, the ethical principle of justice lacks in the decision made by these doctors. They are not fair to people who love their patients; instead of giving them hope, they are explaining to them how this brain damage that she has suffered is irreversible, and the ventilator is of no use to Tonya.

Ethics and Moral Theory

Professional ethics in medicine must be adhered to for the interest of patients. It is morally wrong to see a patient suffering or allow them to die in one's arms when there are remedies. Doctors must be fair and ready to go a step beyond their reach in trying to save a patient. The morality in this is the love of life and medial or hospital ethics. Health care ethics do not require that one is monitored. They should be part of health workers to promote professional ethics by practicing them in their line of duty. The most critical and profound ethical concern that is in line with the mission statement of the hospital in my independent research is autonomy. I believe that influencing the decision that a patient makes on how well they should be treated does not augur well with health care professionals. This is the epitome of morality in the healthcare profession.

Individual Opinion

The principle of beneficence, as much as it shows the commitment that a healthcare worker has, makes healthcare workers pretend to impress the people in custody of the patient. Some cases might not require much effort in saving them, and it is the medical officer who can tell such scenarios. The friends and relatives night not understand that and can decide to sue the practitioner for negligence, which might not have been the case. This code is challenging, and some in-depth analysis should be done to give the health workers room to serve to the best of their knowledge.

References

De Roubaix, J. A. M. (2011). Beneficence, non-maleficence, distributive justice, and respect for patient autonomy-reconcilable ends in aesthetic surgery? Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery, 64(1), 11-16.

Rogers, J., & Kelly, U. A. (2011). Feminist intersectionality: Bringing social justice to health disparities research. Nursing Ethics, 18(3), 397-407.