Ethical and Legal Dilemmas Faced by Healthcare Professionals

This case study examines ethical and legal issues encountered by healthcare professionals, particularly nurses, in their daily practice. It explores dilemmas such as truth versus deception, quality versus quantity, and the allocation of resources. The case study presents a scenario involving a patient with metastatic breast cancer who received palliative care, including the administration of various medications to manage pain and myoclonus. The case highlights the complexities of treatment decisions, patient care, and the ethical considerations involved in end-of-life care. It references relevant ethical guidelines and provides insight into the challenges faced by healthcare providers in balancing patient needs with legal and ethical responsibilities. The analysis underscores the importance of ethical decision-making in healthcare settings and the impact of these decisions on patient outcomes.

Running Head: ETHICAL AND LEGAL AMONG HEALTH PROFESSIONAL
Ethical and Legal Issues among Registered Health Professional
Name
Institution

ETHICAL AND LEGAL ISSUES AMONG HEALTH PROFESSIONAL
Health care professionals are faced with ethical and legal challenges in their daily basis.
The most people facing ethical problems are the nurses. Health professionals provide preventive,
curative and rehabilitative health care services to the society, family and other people. Code of
ethics for nurses serves as a guideline for them to do work in effective quality and ethical
responsibility (American Nurses Association, 2007). Nurses face many moral issues in their
work location such as truth verses deception, quality vs quantity, pro-choice vs pro-life, control
against freedom, practical information vs individual principles, and distribution of resources
(Fant, 2012). Palliative care can be provided anywhere. Ethical concerns a health professional
faces are privacy, relations with patients and harmony (Stirrat et al., 2010).
There is an example of a woman suffering from metastatic breast cancer and she was
hospitalized to control pain. Her pain worsened regardless of her regime of lorazepam,
amitriptyline, celecoxib and high dosages of morphine sulfate oxycodone and hydrochloride
forcing hospitalization again. She was given intravenous (IV) hydromorphone hydrochloride and
lorazepam (NICE, 2004). Her pain worsened and hydromorphone infusion was increased
reaching 40 mg/h with 5-15 mg boluses. Pain became unbearable hence hydromorphone
infusion was increased to 100mg/h and 100 mg boluses in every 15-30 minutes. Myoclonic jerks
developed in the entire body. Morphine caused an opposing impact where fentanyl had no
controlled over the pain. Lorazepam IV was increased up to 64 mg in 90 minutes with no change
on her myoclonic operation. A conclusion was reached to introduce palliative treatment to
provide relief for her since she couldn’t sleep. She was given phenobarbital dose maintained on a
constant phenobarbital infusion. Continued myoclonus made her insensitive, she was them
administered with dantrolene and within 20 minutes, her myoclonus subsided and died
peacefully after four hours later (Fant, 2012).

ETHICAL AND LEGAL ISSUES AMONG HEALTH PROFESSIONAL
References
Fant, C. (2012). Ethical Dilemmas in Nursing. Nurse Together. Retrieved November 20,
2012 from: http://www.nursetogether.com/Career/Career-Article/itemid/2520.aspx.

ETHICAL AND LEGAL ISSUES AMONG HEALTH PROFESSIONAL
NICE (2004). Improving Supportive and Palliative Care for Adults with Cancer. London,
National Institute for Clinical Excellence.
American Nurses Association. (2007). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements.
Nurses books. org.
Stirrat, G. M., Johnston, C., Gillon, R., & Boyd, K. (2010). Medical ethics and law for
doctors of tomorrow: the 1998 Consensus Statement updated. Journal of Medical Ethics,
36(1), 55-60.