A Critical Issue in the Medical Field, Essay Example

A critical issue in the medical field is how ethical concepts can directly impact the status of decision-making and medical practice within the profession.  Bioethics in medical anthropology is very similar to the medical field because it presents professionals with multiple theories by which the govern behaviors and decisions for the best interest of the parties involved.  However, there is often a common conflict between ethical theories that exists more for medical anthropologists than for the medical field practitioners because of the nature of the work that is being discussed, analyzed or presented to the public.

First of all, medical anthropologists must analyze the social, economic, biological, chemical and historical evidence of disease.  These components are not always major factors for all medical practitioners.  In previous chapters, we discussed the major impact of disease plagues and outbreaks such as the Swine Flu and analyzed the many different ways of looking at these plagues.  For instance, a medical anthropologist may use the ethical concept of utilitarianism to offer solutions to many of these serious epidemics that cause damage every day.  This may involve analyzing all of these previously listed components and ways of analyzing the situation, or it may only involve one of them.  While a medical anthropologist may try to propose a solution to the economic issues that create an environment that is conducive to a Swine Flu epidemic, the medical practitioner would only attempt to analyze the biological or chemical components and try to cure the disease.  For instance, the utilitarian thought for the first scenario may be to create a free Swine Flu clinic for shots to be administered to the poor, handicapped, unemployed and homeless.  However, it is logical that the medical practitioner would not view this as a viable solution because he or she does not consider the social, economic and political components associated with the disease.  This is what separates the two fields.

Perhaps one of the best examples that Joralemon uses in his text for this chapter regards the way that the dead are treated within multiple cultures.  The cultural considerations force a much different and quite unique set of bioethics that are not utilized in the medical field.  While it may be cost-efficient and sanitary in the United States to deliver a dead body to the morgue, a dead body in another country may be set aflame on a pyre or may be delivered to the family to dispose of as they wish by relinquishing all responsibility from medical practitioners within the particular culture.  Medical anthropologists must consider the cultural and religious components of the medical field.  A consideration of life after death and the way that the human body is viewed across multiple cultures is very unique to the profession.

Overall, bioethics plays a very particular role in medical anthropology that is sometimes vague and may not directly translate into results in the medical field.  First of all, bioethics should be devised by professional organizations to help guide the way that medical anthropologists perform their work and interact with patients, politicians, families and other sources of analysis and study.  Furthermore, bioethics should be used to force anthropologists to truly consider the multiple components that encompass an entire case.  The solutions to the Swine Flu epidemic or how to dispose of a dead body are not always simple and can often provide increased complexity in medical anthropology.  Regardless, bioethics must be utilized to spark a discussion that creates avenues for anthropologists to examine the ways in which treatment and practice methods are performed in order to suggest well-thought analytical methods by which to solve problems and achieve the ultimate goal of improving the quality of health and life for all individuals in all cultures.

References

Joralemon, Donald. Exploring Medical Anthropology. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2010. Print.