This section should include at least 1 outside reference and your textbook and should be at least 1 ½ pages long. Locate an article that discusses a bioethics issue. First, provide a summary of the article and the bioethics issue being presented. Next, discuss what ethical actions the nurse should take in relation to the issue being presented. Also, discuss possible legal issues that the nurse should be aware of. When I was 19, I had to make a hard decision to put our families dog of 16 years to sleep.
What gave me that responsibility to end my dogs life? Why are people given this substantial choice to end a life of their furry loved one? What led me to finally make this decision? Why are animals given such a gift, to end their pain and suffering? All these questions can pose bioethical issues. Euthanasia is something I am all too familiar with after working years as a veterinary nurse. Euthanasia, and physician assisted suicide which will be discussed in this paper, can bring many concerns of ethics, law, and opposing views on the subject.
De Lima et al. (2017), authors of the journal article entitled International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care Position Statement: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide describes part of the International Associations for Hospice and Palliative Care (IAHPC) vision statement described their mission is to relieve any patients or caregivers (families) suffering to the greatest extent possible.” (p. 10). According to this article, they are completely against euthanasia and physician assisted suicide (PAS). Bioethics is a concern in everyday medicine; palliative and hospice care become a huge component.
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Although medicine and technological has advanced ten-fold over the last few centuries, end of life suffering still prevails. As intensive care units and medicine advances, multidisciplinary teams still face struggles when it comes to the end of a patient’s treatment. Sulmasy and Mueller (2017) explain, “Just as medicine cannot eliminate death, medicine cannot relieve all human suffering.”(p.577). World Health Organization (WHO) gives guidelines to the IAHPC to ensure that people have adequate access to care for moderate to severe pain.
“Their failure to do so violates their obligation to protect, respect’ and fulfill the right to health and to prohibit cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment” (p.10). We are in an era where everyone has an opinion on something and are typically passionate between what is right and wrong. This can bring a lot of disagreements in the medical field, and there is usually multiple way to cure and treat a disease or problem. Culture, beliefs, values, and family can all play a big role on the deciding factors to how a patient chooses to forego, or not forego a treatment. These can bring conflicting values DNR, End of life decisions, quality of life, abortion, decision maker, triaging, organ donation, religious practices, Moral distress/ Code of ethics asserts that nurses have four fundamental jobs “, to promote health, to prevent illness, to restore health, and to alleviate suffering.” (p. 61.) In the case study given to us in module 2, the outline explains that you are a operating room nurse when a trauma alert goes off.
To respond to the possible incoming surgery, you respond to the alert to see an intubation, unresponsive patient with a gun show wound to the head. Although the surgeon explains to the tearful family that the probable outcome of surgery is poor, you prepare the OR with the needed surgical supplies. A research article entitled ‘Action ethical dilemmas in surgery: an interview study of practicing surgeons’ written by Torjuul, Nordam and Sorlie (2005) hits very close to this case study. The article states how surgeons often times run into tough ethical dilemmas when they have to choose between two treatments, or surgical options when neither has a positive outcome. They described this as having to choose ‘between two evils.’ (p. 2). Often times, surgeons have to make the decision on whether to even give a patient and family these options, knowing the outcome and prognosis is poor. At the current moment in this case study, the patient is unresponsive and in no capacity to make decisions on his behalf.
The case study gives a dramatic, horrifying setting that no one would want to go through. Recently losing the patients wife a week ago, and now enduring the pain of this would be unimaginable for anymore. With all these emotions, the family insists the neurosurgeon to move forward with surgery. One can make the assumption that a fearful family would want everything done to try and save this man’s life. ‘Surgeons often experience high expectations from patients, patients’ relatives, colleagues and the media, and can even feel pressure to perform innovative and undocumented surgical operations.’ (Torjuul et al., p.2). As we know, doctors are put in these ethical dilemmas every day. They are entrusted to give all options to patients in regards to treatment and procedures. Legally, they always carry the worry of being sued.
In trauma nursing, such as this situation, the nurse is working with patients and families who were not planning on these predicaments. As this OR nurse who cares for patients who often undergo elective surgeries, these intense types of scenarios can bring on many emotions. How are you to know what is wanted of this unconscious patient? This patient was obviously depressed knowing that he left a letter to his family before he pulled the trigger on himself. Unlike an inpatient nurse who usually know that wishes of their patients, and if they are a DNR; a trauma nurse can be overwhelmed by all the unknowing wishes of their incapacitated patients. This in itself, would be an overwhelming ethical dilemma and we are taught and naturally become our patients advocates. These nurses are all too aware of what life after trauma can entail but not limited to, rehabilitation and the quality of their afterwards. Legally, as nurses we must support the doctor’s decisions.
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