Sociology and Ethics Assignment PDF

Running head: SOCIOLOGY AND ETHICS
Sociology and Ethics
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1SOCIOLOGY AND ETHICS
Introduction
The purpose of the following essay is to discuss about the issues of ethical dilemmas
within the context of health profession. I will describe some of the ethical dilemmas that can be
attributed to the health profession. The topic that I have chosen is the blood transfusion among
the patients without the consent from the patients. There are some ethical aspects in dealing with
these situations. Some of the other ethical dilemmas are cosmetic surgery for the teenagers,
euthanasia, gastric band surgery, refusing the liver treatment for the people addicted to alcohol.
The legal aspects in this course would be discussed in this essay as well.
Ethical dilemma in health profession
The chosen ethical dilemma that would be discussed in this paper is that of transfusing
blood to the people without the consent from their families. There are some ethical principles
that can be attributed to this matter. The most important factor for this paper is that of getting the
valid consent that should be obtained from the patient or the patient’s family before they are
being treated. In the year 2011, the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and
Organs (SaBTO) had added some points that could be taken as the important considerations for
the safe blood transfusion among patients (Transfusionguidelines.org 2019). I must say that these
ethical guidelines must be followed by the healthcare professionals so that the consents from the
patients can be gained properly (Torres et al. 2014).
The committee had suggested that the blood transfusion consent should be gained from
the healthcare professionals and it should be included in the clinical record of the patients. I want
to reflect on this fact and say that the healthcare professionals must not commit anything in a
manner that is unethical (Transfusionguidelines.org 2019). The laws that prohibit this kind of

2SOCIOLOGY AND ETHICS
unethical act like the blood transfusion without consent should be strengthened. The Directive
2001/83/EC has been a very strong legal principle that has been implemented to stop that kind of
unethical practice among the people without the consents. There are some other aspects that I
would want to reflect in this matter (Torres et al. 2014). I also think that the consent form of the
long-term multi-transfused patients should be in a modified form. All the details of this form
should be depicted in the consent policies of the professional healthcare organizations.
However, I am also of the opinion that the patients who have received the blood
transfusion but were unable to give their valid consent before the transfusion should be provided
with the adequate amount of information in this regard. The SaBTO had also produced some
extra resources that would surely help the healthcare professionals to go ahead with the
transfusion process. The standardized information resource should be provided to the clinicians
that would indicate all the relevant issues to take the decisions in the when the valid blood
transfusion consent should be gained. The valid consent must be obtained from the patients or
their families before the organizations would proceed with this factor (Kanthimathinathan and
Scholefield 2014).
Another important ethical dilemma in this matter is that of the cosmetic surgery for the
teenagers. The healthcare professionals should always see after the situations and the legislations
before agreeing to the cosmetic surgeries for the teenagers (Bock 2012). When a 16 year old girl
went to the professional healthcare clinic to go through a cosmetic surgery for breast implant on
the eve of her birthday with the consent from her parents, the doctors had completely rejected the
matter. The doctors clearly stated that it could only be done after she crossed her 18. According
to some of the physicians the children should not go through the cosmetic surgeries until there