The Role of Ethical Principles in Health Care, Essay Example

People who work in healthcare have long understood the need to act in an ethical manner, since the relationship you have with your patient is unique and implies a high degree of trust. Limenati, writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics, notes that “codes of ethics have been a longstanding element in the professional control of behavior….and indicate a commitment to act with integrity in extreme circumstances” (Limenati, 1999, p. 394). This attitude is laudable in that it recognizes the need for healthcare professionals to be able to respond in a trustworthy manner to whatever situation they might find themselves in and to “do the right thing.” However, doing the right thing does not mean the same thing to all people in all circumstances, and sometimes a hard-and-fast set of ethical principles can actually interfere with the care you give. The fact is that you learn very quickly when you work in the medical field that life is messy and often morally ambiguous and you have to be very careful not to let a code of ethics erect an impenetrable barrier between you and the person you are trying to care for.

I can think of an excellent example from my own life of letting your own ethics and values get in the way of care. This happened to me several years ago, when I first started in healthcare, and I was helping to give care to a woman with a long history of methadone abuse. She had been pregnant with several children while this abuse had taken place and they had all been born with an array of health problems. When I knew her, she was five months pregnant and still taking the methadone.  Many people on the staff at my facility did not want to work with her because of her issues and I have to confess that I myself felt morally disgusted with her actions, which to me amounted to inutero child abuse.  However, I dug deep and tried to be as friendly and compassionate to her as I could and I am glad I did.  She talked to me more than other members of the staff who were not so friendly and one day, she told me a little of her life story, that she had been abused by her parents and had run away from home when she was a young teenager and gotten hooked on the drugs while living on the streets. A lot of judgmental feelings I harbored for her evaporated after that and she was finally able to transfer to a detox facility, one of whose specialties was working on drug rehab for pregnant women. I think this was an important lesson for me, because it taught me that your own beliefs and values, however important they are to you, can get in the way of a therapeutic relationship with your patient.

A second way in which ethics can sometimes interfere with healthcare is when it comes to giving care for a culturally diverse population. The National Institute of Health defines culture as including “elements such as personal identification, language, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values and institutions that are specific to an ethnic, racial, geographic or social group” (National Institute of Health, 2013, p. 1).  In our increasingly diverse society, you have to be able to deliver care that is sensitive to the ethics and morality of the group you are serving, regardless of how you may feel about a particular issue yourself.  I once had a patient who was a Jehovah’s Witness who developed a rare blood disorder and chose to go onto hospice rather than receive transfusions that would have saved his life. He had a wife and several young children and I did not agree with his decision, but I still supported  his right to make it. With the long-overdue implementation of the Affordable Care Act, many people of lower socioeconomic status (who can often be people of color), are enjoying increased access to medical care and because of this, the diversity of the patient population you are working with at any given time may well increase. You may well find yourself working with patients from cultures that are completely alien to your own. Under these circumstances, being able to put aside your own beliefs in order to care for your patient will become an increasingly important part of being a healthcare professional.

References

Limenati, A. (1999). “The Role of Ethical Principles in Health Care and the Implications for Ethical Codes”.  The Journal of Medical Ethics.  25(2). 394-398

“What is Cultural Competency?” (2013). The National Institute of Health Website. Web. 15 June 2014.