Doctors on duty
A doctor on duty in a hospital emergency room one Halloween night treats a 15-year old boy whose eye was injured by an exploding firecracker. He notices the boy is drunk. Because the extent of the injury is not certain, he has the boy admitted to the hospital and notifies his parents. When they arrive the boy is under sedation, so his drunkenness condition escapes their detection. Nevertheless, the doctor informs them that their son had been drinking. Do you agree it was his professional obligation to inform the parents of the 15-year patient that he had been drinking? Why or why not?
In this scenario, the doctor did the right thing to inform the parents regarding the boy’s drunkenness. As a physician, it is ethical to report unhealthy behaviour that is likely to cause danger to children. Perhaps, the parents might not be aware that their son had been drinking alcohol. Also, his state of drunkenness might have contributed to the eye injury that the boy sustained from the exploded firecracker. At the age of 15 years, the boy should not engage in much drinking because it may affect his health. Medically, being drink is not healthy; and this could be the reason that forced the doctor to share the state of the boy with his parents so that they may help him to stop. Professionally, it is ethical for the doctor to inform the parents upon detecting or noticing unusual behaviour that is likely to cause more harm to the child. Therefore, I agree it was the doctor’s professional obligation to reveal the boy’s drunkenness condition to the parents.
Out of the three: Considering Consequences, Considering Obligation, Considering Moral Ideals, Is one more important than the other? If so, explain which you choose and why? If not, why not?
From the three, I would select Considering Moral Ideal to be more important than the rest. Moral rules provide the baseline for ethics, proscribing unacceptable behavior. As a result, moral ideas help to inspire us to behave or act in a manner that improves the human condition. Moral ideal is a conception of what an individual should do. It helps individuals to take a vision of what they should aim towards, based on moral standards. I consider moral ideals to be more important because they integrate our actions around fairly concrete goals. Moral ideals also constitute the consequences associated with an action; for instance, they help individuals to lessen the extent of causing harm to others. Moral ideals enable us to accept things that we should pursue not just intellectually but emotionally, which motivates us to keep doing actions or things that are acceptable. For these reasons, I choose Considering Moral Ideals.
A team of doctors has been assigned the difficult duty of deciding which of two patients will receive the next heart transplant when a heart is available. The patients are, Anne, 12 years old, the only child of a laborer and his wife, and Mark, 48, an executive and father of four children. They choose Anne. Identify the ideals or ideals and obligations that are in conflict. Examine the action taken and decide whether it achieves the greater good or lesser harm.
In this case, the purpose of a heart transplant is to save the lives of the two patients. However, based on the age factor, Anne should be given priority as compared to Mark, who is 48 years old. It is important to save young lives and allow them an opportunity to live. The ideals applied in this scenario are based on the attempt to try as much as they can to save the life of the young patient, Anne. Also, it is ethical because patients with a younger age report high chances of survival after a heart transplant. However, the conflict that can be experienced in this case is that Mark is an executive and a father of four, who needs to survive in order to take care of the children. Another issue of conflict is that Anne is young, and she is the only child of the laborer and his wife. Despite Mark being an executive and a father of four, Anne deserves to be given the priority as the doctors decided.