Health Care Law

RUNNING HEAD: HEALTH CARE LAW
HEALTH CARE LAW
Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

1HEALTH CARE LAW
INTRODUCTION
Chapter 12 focusses on all the patient rights regarding decision making, quality and
compassionate care, palliative care and to know about his caregivers. This chapter is meant to
preserve the social status of the patient inside the healthcare framework. Chapter 13 focusses
on the legal aspect of healthcare like taking consents and maintaining patient’s will with a
treatment which also work within the framework of healthcare ethics and patient servicing.
Chapter 14 means to dissect the very ethical dilemmas related to health care like abortion,
surrogacy etc. and understand the causation and resolutions of dilemmas effectively. Chapter
15 describes about End of life care and ethical implications which is vital to every health
setting and the staffs including the clinician needs to adhere to patient autonomy, beneficence
and non-maleficence principles profoundly.
DISCUSSION
Response to Question 1:
The patient Ms P was showing signs of acute confusional syndrome along with blue
tinted skin and shortness of breath. She was also slipping in and out of her consciousness.
These were the signs of cyanosis as well as respiratory distress and required emergency
medical intervention. But as the patient Ms P was on DNAR – Do not attempt resuscitation
(Perkins et al., 2016) code and still the emergency team was trying to save her life, to which
the patient has pressed her wish against it. Hence, it was a situation of conflict between
patient care’s integrity, totality and obedience against beneficence moral (Oakley, 2018).
Response to Question 2:
The doctors, attending nurses and a collaborative medical team involved with
treatment and interventions of Ms P are responsible for fulfilling her dying wish. In this case

2HEALTH CARE LAW
study, it is very clear – that Ms P has two dying wishes – one that she did not wanted to be
alone and second, that she do not wanted to be resuscitated when her breathing pattern stops.
The medical student panicked and called up her brother in law who happened to the regular
visitor in the hospital. From her part, the medical student was right as she thought that Ms P
is in the need of her family and she responded rightly by calling up her brother in law. But
instead, the student should have stayed with Ms P –given the physical sign and symptoms
where were quite indicative of a medical emergency.
Response to Question 3:
The medical student is partially responsible for not seeing, assessing and calling the
senior medical team for emergency management of Ms P’s dyspnea, cyanosis and dropping
consciousness. The medical student panicked due to lack of experience for she should have
chosen patient beneficence over patient obedience at that point of time. The patient Ms P
wanted the medical student to be with her as she was already feeling uneasy and
discomforted as well but the student interpreted in a different way, unintentionally though.
But as the situation stands, the medical student is responsible to the patient’s death and to
answer to her family as well.
Response to Question 4:
It was actually the attending physician’s responsibility to see the patient throughout
and not to leave such a delicate and medically fragile case in hands of a third year medical
student who lack not only the necessary skills to respond and attend to an acute medical case
with precision. The physician is responsible both to the nurturing and guiding of the student
as well the care of the concerned patient. He is the expert in clinical decision making and he
should have supervised the whole treatment process without leaving the patient alone with
inexperienced medical student.