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Nursing Ethics and Law Case Study

   

Added on  2020-03-16

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Healthcare and Research
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NURSING ETHICS AND LAW CASE STUDYINTRODUCTIONEthics refers to the moral principles, morals and values that are set to guide and govern a certain specific group of people (Shafer-Landau, 2014). A law is a system or rules and regulations that are created by society or group leaders (e.g. government) and are officially enforced to the people to govern and regulate their behavior and actions. Therefore, in this case study I will be discussing the ethics and laws in nursing but in reference to the information in the case study. The case study involves a registered nurse, Dr. Lin and three people, Sofie, Cindy and Joseph. Sofie is the immediate patient of Dr. Lin and RN Kiki while Joseph and Cindy are husband and daughter to Sofie respectively. Dr. Lin performs cosmetic operations to Sofie while RN Kiki’s responsibility is to attend to Sofie on a regular bases. In this essay, I will be discussing the ethicalissues that any of the parties may have breached and the laws that they may have broken, especially DR. Lin when he insisted and decided to operate on Sofie even after the nurse discovered that her health was deteriorating which later caused the death of Sofie.LEGAL ISSUESJoseph and Cindy would sue Dr. Lin for negligence. Apparently, having known Sofie for many years, the doctor was already aware of her health condition, i.e. about her confusion status, the abnormal rise in her body temperature which indicated signs of urinary tract infection. However, when sofie decided to undergo abdominoplasty surgery and the day came, the doctor still went on to operate on her even after being told about her conditions’ further deterioration assuming that everything would be okay. The proof for this situation was clear when sofie showed her confusion rate during the day of the surgery. When she reached the hospital and was placed on the surgery bed, she asked Joseph and Cindy she was in the hospital that day which indicated thatshe never knew what she was doing. Also, Sofie failed to sign the consent forms to authorize the surgery before the surgery begun. The standard of proof needed in this case should be of high quality to be able to convince the court of the laws that were broken due to the doctor’s negligence (Lostun et al, 2016 and Murthy, 2007) which later led to post-operative infection and sepsis that caused Sofie’s death.However, if Dr. Lin was to be reported, he would also require some defense evidence. The doctor would have provided the pre-operative consent form that was signed by Joseph, Sophie’s
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husband giving Dr. Lin permission to operate on her. Such a form was meant to show that Josephwas okay with the doctor operating on Sofie even with her current health condition. In such a situation the legal condition of the law states that a patient’s husband or wife is allowed to sign the consent forms in case the patient is not in a condition to do so on their own. In this case, Sofie had already slept on the surgery bed without signing the pre-operative consent form but theRN nurse noticed it before the actual surgery was began and asked Joseph the forms which he did. Therefore, if Dr. Lin is capable of providing the evidence, it will certainly be considered andargued that he followed the law.Every case has different possible outcomes according to a person’s view of the situation (Svider et al, 2013). One of the outcomes that may arise is that, the law may rule in favor of Joseph and Cindy. The law can take into more consideration the fact that Dr. Lin is a well experienced surgeon and that he knows the law that govern his practice better than the patients or the patient relatives. Therefore, he must have known better about the effects and consequences of operating on Sofie with her current health condition and complications. Also, the law may consider that fact that a surgery operation begins exactly when a patients is given aesthetic to induce sleep during the surgery (Reilly et al, 2013). Therefore, the law can rule in favor of Cindy and Joseph by arguing that Dr. Lin had already begun the surgery before the preoperative consent forms were signed by either the patient or immediate relative/partner. On the other hand, the law can rule in favor of Dr. Lin by placing the blame on Joseph who signed the consent forms while being aware of his wife’s condition. Additionally, he was the one who brought her to the hospitalto undergo the surgery. Therefore, he should have known that the probability of the operation increasing Sofie’s complications and deteriorating health would be higher if she underwent the surgery.
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