Ethical Responsibility of Healthcare Professionals to Introduce New Treatments and Technologies into Healthcare

This essay discusses the ethical responsibility of healthcare professionals to introduce new treatments and technologies into healthcare. It covers bioethical principles, including autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice, and ethical theories, including utilitarian thinking, deontological thinking, virtue ethics thinking, ethics of care thinking, and natural law. The essay concludes that healthcare professionals have an ethical responsibility to introduce new treatments and technologies into healthcare.

Argumentative Essay

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Essay topic: “Healthcare professionals have an ethical responsibility to always advocate for the
introduction of new treatments and technologies into healthcare”
This is the essay topic where discussion will be performed on the ethical accountability of
heath care people to always introduce the advanced technology in the field of the health care and
implement it for better and improved treatments of patients. It is important to focus on the
technology because of the emerging variety of diseases requires new treatments and hence,
updated technical healthcare devices are highly needed for the same. The following discussion is
made on the bioethical principles which includes autonomy and beneficence along with the non-
maleficence and justice. Discussion is also made on the ethical theories which includes utilitarian
thinking and deontological thinking along with the virtue ethics thinking and ethics of care
thinking and natural law (Garg & Kutty (2020)).
MAIN BODY
There are basically four bioethical principles such as principle of autonomy is one of the
bioethical principle which states that the rights of an individual must be kept reserved and safe in
order to be self determined and has the ability to respect the decisions in personal matters of an
individuals along with the freedom of it. This is basically to provide the information to the
people about their rights and informed consent so that they can apply wherever needed. In
context of medical terms, it is important to respects the patent's autonomy at any cost. This is
because there are challenges such as using the advanced technology on the patients who are
financially good and can pay more for the service but not using the technology for the patients
who are poor. They must know their rights and must be respected equally (Skär & Söderberg
(2018)).
Principle of beneficence is an another bioethical principle which states that the actions which
supports the welfare of the people in any terms that means not harming an individual either
intentionally or unintentionally for better mental peace and physical health. In context of medical
terms, it is essential to look after the needs and requirements of the patients and their families
along with the interest that the technology used for the new treatments are convenient or
comfortable for the or not. There must not be any force regarding this, this can bring the best
possible outcome if healthcare professionals convinces the patients for the adoption of
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technology at their will so that the utilization of technical resources can be done in a more
appropriate manner.
Principle of non-maleficence is also one of the bioethical principle which states that there should
be no harm to the person regarding at terms and must be safe so that this principle can be
justified properly. In context of medical terms, it is the responsibility of the health care
professionals that while treating the patient by adopting new technology on the, patients must not
get harmed at any cost. Therefore, this principle says that any unnecessary harm must be avoided
by the heath care professional on a prior basis on an intentional basis but if the harm is made
unintentionally then the heal care professional can suffer the illegal artefacts and can also loose
their medical license practising on patients. Hence, this principle is all about “First – do no
harm” because of the medical oath of Hippocratic oath (Durante (2018)).
Principle of justice is also an another bioethical principle which states that there must be equality
among various and assorted individuals such as rich and poor along with the male and female
which is followed by the race, caste, colour and many more. In context of medical terms, there
must be an allocation of scarce health resources along with the decision making that who will
receive treatment and who will not. New treatments using updated technology must be given to
the patients who deserves the treatments but on on any discrimination or inequality or injustice.
There must be the maximum and correct utilization of technical medical equipments or resources
for better treatment of the patients which helps in the justification of this principle of justice in
order to treat all the patients equally by using the new treatments methods using advanced
technologies.
There are basically five ethical theories such as utilitarian thinking is one of the ethical
theory which states that this theory helps in getting the best possible outcome of the alternative
results. Such type of thinking supports an individual to initiate in the best decision making
process for better outcomes of the same. In context of medical terms, useful introduction of the
new treatments by using the technology that can help the patients in getting the treatment even
more improved and enhanced by the health care professionals. This thinking assists in
developing and implementing the updated technology for better utilisation of technical resources.
Moreover, it aids in changing the though process from reactive to proactive thinking in such type
of the ethical theory if talking about medical terms (Lee (2020)).
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Deontological thinking is an another ethical theory which states that this type of thinking is all
about making decisions between right or wrong actions rather than focusing on the any results or
consequences regarding the decision outcome. If the action is right then no matter the outcome
will be wrong but the action must not be wrong and it is also important to take care next time that
consequences should also be right as well. In context of medical terms, code of ethics uses this
approach because right actions has a direct relationship with the ethical behaviour of the health
care professionals in terms of technology used and new treatments introduced and many more,
this is why it supports this type of thinking.
Virtue ethics thinking is also one of the ethical theory which states that this type of theory or
thinking is based on the expectations of the right or wrong actions along with the consequences
or outcomes. It defined the character of a person because if the actions and outcomes from those
actions. In context of medical terms, health care professionals performs their actions whether
right or wrong but there are major or minor expectations of the patients from them that the
consequences will also be right and therefore, it is essential to meet the expectations for better
utilization of technical resources and it is also helpful in the introduction of new treatments by
adopting advanced technology for the same (Chen, Pierson, Rose & Ghassemi (2020)).
Ethics of care thinking is also an another ethical theory which states that the management and
handling of the situations are totally dependent on the attitude of the patient and health care
professionals. They examine and analyse the specific situations they are facing and try to figure
out the solutions as per the needs and requirements of the particular situations. Solutions drawn
are specific to the circumstances which means that it cannot be applied in every situation. This is
the explanation in context of medical terms but if talking about general life then ethical care is
used within business organizations where leaders and managers tackle the situations according to
the demand of the situation so that it can be managed at its best.
Natural law is one of the ethical theory which states that there are several basic human rights
which are universally accepted as per the standard norms based on reasoning and responsibility
of an individual and are required to get followed otherwise the legal action can be taken by other
party if such laws are prohibited. In context of medical terms, UDHR framework is followed
which is a universal declaration of human rights where medical norms are also stated for the
health care professionals as well as for the patients also. All such laws requires positive response
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from the citizens rather then negative one as this can result in the legal action of it (Cawthorne &
Robbins-van Wynsberghe (2020)).
CONCLUSION
It is concluded that “Healthcare professionals have an ethical responsibility to always
advocate for the introduction of new treatments and technologies into healthcare” is an important
concept to learn and study so that its applications can be applied in the real world medical
domains. This is because, technology is updating day by day and grabbing a great pace in every
domain and industry, health care highly requires the advanced technology to introduce the new
treatments of different diseases in an accurate manner (Feng-Gu, Everett, Brown & Savulescu
(2021)). Therefore, it is important and essential to analyse and examine the bioethical principles
which includes autonomy and beneficence along with the non-maleficence and justice. It is
necessary and significant to determine and gain the knowledge about ethical theories which
includes utilitarian thinking and deontological thinking along with the virtue ethics thinking and
ethics of care thinking and natural law. Hence, this essay covers all such areas in order to better
understand the conception of ethical responsibility to introduce the new treatments and
technologies into healthcare.
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References
Books and Journals
Cawthorne, D., & Robbins-van Wynsberghe, A. (2020). An ethical
framework for the design, development, implementation, and
assessment of drones used in public healthcare. Science and
Engineering Ethics. 26(5). 2867-2891.
Chen, I. Y., Pierson, E., Rose, S. & Ghassemi, M. (2020). Ethical
Machine Learning in Healthcare. Annual Review of Biomedical
Data Science, 4.
Durante, C. (2018). Philantropic healthcare: Christian conceptions of
social responsibility and healthcare. In Religious Perspectives on
Social Responsibility in Health (pp. 39-49). Springer, Cham.
Feng-Gu, E., Everett, J., Brown, R. C. & Savulescu, J. (2021).
Prospective intention-based lifestyle contracts: mHealth
Technology and Responsibility in Healthcare. Health Care
Analysis, 1-24.
Garg, S., & Kutty, V. R. (2020). The ethical responsibility of healthcare
providers to advise patients with diabetes on lifestyle
modifications. Indian journal of medical ethics, (2), 124-127.
Lee, D. (2020). Impact of organizational culture and capabilities on
employee commitment to ethical behavior in the healthcare
sector. Service Business. 14(1). 47-72.
Skär, L., & Söderberg, S. (2018). The importance of ethical aspects
when implementing eHealth services in healthcare: A discussion
paper. Journal of advanced nursing. 74(5). 1043-1050.
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