Ethics, Law and Healthcare | Report

Running Head: ETHICS, LAW AND HEALTHCARE
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Ethics, Law and Healthcare
Name
Institution
Ethics, Law, and healthcare

ETHICS, LAW AND HEALTHCARE 2
Medical ethics aids in the examination of a medical problem by applying values, facts,
and logic to make the best decision regarding the underlying issue (Staunton & Chiarella, 2008).
Since some medical issues are straightforward while others are complicated, medicinal values,
principles, and skills are used to find the best course of action. Healthcare principles include
autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. Medical skills include listening skills,
communication skills, and the ability to gather information to act according to facts. On the other
hand, medical ethics cover medical errors, decision making, malpractice, confidentiality, and the
treatment of a disease. In this paper, health care ethics and principles are used to apply the ethical
and legal decision-making framework to a medical scenario after identifying the issues affecting
both nurses and the hospital.
Healthcare principles
Healthcare principles include autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. The
principle of independence avails freedom to a patient, and thus, patients can choose their
healthcare and also select the people they want to be notified about their medical condition. In
choosing healthcare, patients can select the type of treatment they would wish to receive, and the
doctors are obliged to put the choice into consideration. According to the principle of autonomy,
patients are given the freedom to determine their healthcare. Mrs. Semple instructed RN Nguyen
that he should not let her husband Mr. Semple know about her medical condition. RN Nguyen
respected the decision and even went ahead to record the discussion in the clinical file (Spasovic,
2003). Ethically, this was correct because patients have the freedom to determine their
healthcare, which should be respected. The documentation of the discussion in the clinical file
would inform other physicians that Mr. Semple should not be informed about the medical
condition of Mrs. Semple.

ETHICS, LAW AND HEALTHCARE 3
The principle of beneficence requires health workers to handle patients with kindness
with an aim to transfer benefits to the patient. Therefore, health workers should try as much as
possible to treat a disease, prevent disease, and give proper medication to enable the patient to
recover. The doctors acted in accordance with beneficence because they put an instruction above
the patient's bed, showing that Mrs. Semple should not be given food and fluids. Their action
was supposed to do good to the patient to prevent her from suffering from aspiration pneumonia,
which comes as a result of feeding a patient on food and fluids. Ethically, this was a good act
since the physicians were aiming at saving the patient's life.
According to the principles of medical Law and ethics, RN Ben Bolton ought to have
notified Mrs. Semple the medical error he had made immediately he noted (Rogers, 1992). He
should have expressed an apology and a personal regret for the mistake he had made. He should
have also admitted that error had occurred as indicated by the coughing, which came as a result
of feeding her with food and fluids. Without the use of jargon, RN Ben Bolton should have
informed the patient that the error occurred as a result of failure to properly read Mrs. Semple's
chart which led him to feed her with foods and fluids which earlier on had been withdrawn from
her by the doctors. RN Ben Bolton ought to have gone ahead to explain both the short-term and
long-term consequences of the error on the patient. The doctor ought to have given Mrs. Semple
ample time for questions and dialogue and also additionally explain to her the corrective steps
and future preventive steps to correct the error from occurring again. Rn Ben Bolton went
contrary to the medical ethics under medical mistakes, and thus he is liable because he did not
notify Mrs. Semple about the mistake he had made.