Every aspect of healthcare has ethical implications, from the ethics of education frameworks studied in an Ed.D. in health care, to the considerations a doctor has to make when recommending a treatment plan.
Some of the important ethical considerations medical professionals must observe include honoring patient advocacy and autonomy, balancing workplace efficiency and productivity while still delivering quality treatment and care, navigating end-of-life care best practices, respecting patient confidentiality and privacy, and also, considering the ethics surrounding organ donorship.
This article will explore these examples of ethical considerations healthcare practitioners must take into account in further detail.
Ethical Consideration #1: Patient Advocacy and Autonomy
When advocating for their patients, medical professionals must consider the four key principles of ethics in healthcare. These are:
Autonomy
Respecting the autonomy of patients means keeping them in the loop, consulting with them on their wishes, needs, and preferences, and allowing them to practice informed consent throughout their medical treatment plans.
Beneficence
When practicing beneficence, healthcare practitioners must consider each patient's best interests in all of their actions as their treating professionals, at all times.
Non-Maleficence
Non-maleficence refers to the active avoidance of intentional harm to patients.
Justice
Advocating for patients also requires medical practitioners to pioneer what's fair, appropriate, and just for the patient in question in terms of their treatment.
Ethical Consideration #2: Efficiency vs. Care
It goes without saying — in many workplaces, productivity and efficiency are revered above all. This applies to the healthcare industry, however, in clinical environments, the expected standards of efficiency and productivity must also be balanced with the healthcare practitioner's ability to deliver quality care to their patients.
Indeed, in an industry where even the slightest error in judgment or performance can be harmful to patients in their care, healthcare professionals must ensure they are maintaining high levels of diligence, vigilance, and care at all times. Failure to do so can result in the worst-case scenario — patient harm. This can be preventable if medical professionals ensure that they are taking due care while still meeting their workplace efficiency and productivity requirements.
Ethical Consideration #3: End of Life Care
When considering end-of-life care best practices, medical professionals must take into account the ethics surrounding this stage of treatment. Some of these end-of-life care ethical considerations include:
Whether or Not to Perform Medical Interventions
When a patient is terminally ill, often, difficult decisions must be made regarding whether to apply, withdraw, or withhold from intervening medically. In some cases, there comes a time when life-sustaining medical interventions — such as mechanical ventilation, for example — must, sadly, be shut off.
Whether or Not to Allow Natural Death
Allowing natural death involves ensuring that the patient is as comfortable and at ease as possible, without interfering with the natural course of their dying process.
Whether or Not to Dispense ‘Palliative Sedation'
Euthanasia is a contentious issue, and the ethics surrounding assisted dying via palliative sedation are both controversial and difficult to navigate.
Ethical Consideration #4: Patient Confidentiality and Privacy
For medical treatment and care to be ethical, patient confidentiality and privacy must be respected. It is imperative that sensitive medical information is stored in secure, protected databases — away from prying eyes.
For patient confidentiality around their medical information to be upheld, healthcare practices must implement stringent cybersecurity measures to avoid hacking by unauthorized users.
The goal is to ensure that healthcare data breaches are avoided at all costs, to reduce the risk of compromising the personal medical information that is stored in clinical practice databases.
Ethical Consideration #5: Organ Donorship
Finally, healthcare professionals must also consider ethical principles in relation to organ donorship. Some of these principles include:
The Patient's Right to Choose
When considering the ethics of organ donorship, medical practitioners must consider the patient's right to decide;
- Whether they consent to donating their organs.
- Which organs will be donated, if at all.
Fairness of Usage and Distribution
For true justice in organ donorship, the allocation of donated organs must be fair and offered equally to all deserving recipients. Of course, these ethical considerations are not always applied in reality — many other details such as socioeconomic factors, transplant waiting lists, and available access to donors, can come into play.
The healthcare sector is an incredibly rewarding, but complicated industry to work in, and ethical considerations are just one factor in this. Luckily, for many situations, there are specific guidelines and rules in place for healthcare professionals to follow, making ethical dilemmas that little bit simpler.
