Ethical and Legal Issues: Decision Making in Healthcare

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[Name of Instructor]

Abstract

In this project, I tried to explore various ethical and legal issues for healthcare professionals in decision making in healthcare. The research analyses the principles of ethics in healthcare, ethical and legal issues for decision making in healthcare, the significance of considering to take an ethical and legal decision, the various approaches for taking an ethical decision and their consequences on the patient and the community. The research comprises of a case study analysis, which requires critical analysis of the case in accordance with the literature review conducted for the study. The secondary research is conducted by reviewing literature from various online resources and books. It can be argued that with the increasing frequency of ethical and legal conflicts associated with the decision making of professionals, in healthcare, makes it significant for the healthcare professionals to increase their knowledge and skills in identifying and managing such conflicts.

Introduction

There is a significant impact of ethical and legal issues on today's healthcare professional's workload, stress, time management, as well as, respect from the community (Nelson & Schifferdecker, 2009). The increasing frequency of ethical and legal conflicts associated with the decision making of professionals, in healthcare, makes it significant for the healthcare professionals to increase their knowledge and skills in identifying and managing such conflicts (Nelson, 2008). Therefore, the paper identifies the principles of ethics in healthcare, ethical and legal issues for decision making in healthcare, the significance of considering to take an ethical and legal decision, the various approaches for taking an ethical decision and their consequences on the patient and the community. Further, the paper explores various applications of ethical and legal principles to clinical decision making and assessment of the outcomes of ethical and legal decision making on the patient, stakeholders and the community, as whole and the complexities and consequences associated with the ethical and legal decision making.

Literature Review

Ethic deals with the standard code of conduct within the context of legal standards and requires moral judgment. Growing technologies in healthcare system challenges the ethical and legal standards, and creates circumstances that require moral judgment. However, there are some basic principles associated with healthcare ethics that include: beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy/respect for persons and justice (Beauchamp & Childress, 1994).

The Principle of Beneficence

This principle requires the healthcare professional to deliver a duty of benefit for their patients and provide maximum care to prevent any harm from their patients. Such duties of benefit are considered as obvious and are widely recognized as the appropriate goals of healthcare. This principle is equally applicable to the individual patients, as well as, to the benefit of society as a whole. For instance, the maximum protection of a patient from the disease is the goal of healthcare and the prevention of this disease by employing vaccines and research for its prevention is the expansion of such goal for the society as a whole. However, the principle of beneficence is widely accepted as a limited duty because it also ...