Assignment: Making Ethical Decisions

Assignment: Making Ethical Decisions
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Assignment: Making Ethical Decisions

Please write a paragraph responding to the discussion bellow. Add citations and references in alphabetical order.

Ranking the importance of each of the four principles is not easy. They are all very important and provide an important background for making ethical decisions. I thought it was interesting that the author made a point to let the readers know that although autonomy was the first item listed, it was not the most important.

I agree with the author that autonomy is very important but does not trump all other principles or values. I believe that beneficence is the most important value and therefore I start my list with it. “The common morality requires that we contribute to others’ welfare, perhaps as an embodiment of the Golden Rule” (Lawernce, 2007, p. 1). It is important that in the healthcare setting we include the patient on our decision. Most patients wish to be provided various levels of information, and may wish to select a particular direction for their care because in their view that is the greatest good. Because this may differ from the healthcare provider’s perspective, a tension is created.

Second on my list is Justice as the next important biomedical ethical principle. According to (Lawrence, 2007) justice address the questions of distribution of scarce healthcare resources, respect for people’s rights and respect for morally acceptable laws. Justice represents one of the thorniest issues that a country can face, and in the United States is a source of ongoing concern and political rancor.

Next, I rank nonmaleficence. I strongly believe that we should do no harm to our patients or anyone for that matter. In the healthcare setting we have to always evaluate what the result of our future actions will be before we actually do them. An example of this is when a doctor ordered hypertension medicine on my patient who did not have high blood pressure. I went directly to the doctor and asked why he ordered the medication, and it ended up that he did it on the wrong patient. Had I not investigated the issue, I would have possibly caused harm my patient and to the patient who would not have received the med that was in a hypertensive crisis.

Lastly, I rank Autonomy as an important value but not the most important value of biomedical ethics. The reason I chose to put it last is due to the fact that not all patients are capable of making autonomous decisions. To be autonomous requires a person to have the capacity to deliberate a course of action, and to put that plan into action. This creates a problem when it comes to the delivery of health care, especially when patients are comatose, imcompetent, (whether due to age- i.e., children, or to mental ability).

I believe the Christian biblical narrative would disagree with the order I believe biomedic ethics are ranked in. Florence Nightingage is a good example of a dedicated Christian who seemed most concerned about the ethical implications of religious belief; she created an alternative concept of God that would appeal to most everyone so they would have a basis of morality. Influential nursing leaders at the turn of the century railed against the idea of nursing as a religious calling. Tension between the secular and religious influences in nursing was the common practice of deaconess hospitals’ establishing schools of nurs-ing based on the Nightingale system, so that, until the establishment of bacca-laureate nursing programs, the two philosophies—service and professional-ism—developed side by side (Hillstrom. 1995). With that said, I would suppose that the Christian biblical narrative would rank the biomedical ethics in this order:

References

Hillstrom, E., (1995). Testing the Spirts. Downers Grove Ill. InterVarsity Press Received from https://viewer.gcu.edu/UGPTQ4

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