Healthcare Ethics: Exploring Legal and Ethical Issues in Patient Care

This case study examines the legal and ethical issues arising from the care of a patient, Mr. Jones, in a healthcare setting. The analysis focuses on breaches of patient-doctor confidentiality, where a nurse disclosed private information to a reporter without consent, leading to potential legal action for invasion of privacy. The assignment also identifies instances of medical malpractice, such as nurses ignoring patient concerns and omitting critical information, which resulted in the patient's deteriorating health. Furthermore, the case study highlights ethical violations related to patient autonomy, specifically the disregard for the patient's refusal of further treatment. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of medical practitioners' understanding of ethical codes and medical standards of practice to ensure quality, ethical, and legally sound patient care. References are provided to support the analysis.

Introduction
Medical practitioners play a critical role in the delivery of quality care to patients in
healthcare facilities. In the process of delivering quality care to the patients effectively, nurses
are guided by medical standards of practice and codes of ethics which helps the nurses to make
the right decisions in every situation they are faced (Peter , 2018). Medical standards of practice
and codes of ethics are necessary for the process of delivering quality care because the needs of
patients are not only different but also unique and more often nurses are faced with dilemmas
when trying to meet those needs (Stolt et al., 2018). With the help of codes of ethics and medical
standard of practice, nurses are able to solve these ethical dilemmas by making sound decisions
that are legal, patient-centered, and morally right. However, some medical practitioners are not
conversant with codes of ethics and medical standard of practice which result in legal and ethical
concerns in the process of delivering care to the patients. For example, in the case study
provided, one of the nurses gives out private information of the patient without the patient’s
consent. The action of the nurse raises legal concerns regarding the patient-doctor relationship.
Also, one of the nurses administers treatment to the patient when the patient had refused
treatment in the first place which raises ethical issues regarding the patient’s right to self-
determination.
Body
A discussion on the legal issues on the cased study
One of the main legal concerns that comes out clearly in this essay is the breach of
patient-doctor confidentiality. By definition, doctor-patient confidentiality is founded on the
principle that requires people not to be worried about seeking medication for fear that their

condition will be disclosed to other people (Bjorklund & Lund, 2019). The goal of the doctor-
patient relationship is to create a comfortable environment for patients to provide relevant
information that will assist in quality care delivery by the nurses (Cunningham & Ainsworth,
2018). All medical practitioners are supposed to adhere to this relationship in the process of
caring for patients. However, in the case study provided, the nurses caring for Mr. Jones
breached the patient-doctor relationship in various instances. One of these instances was when
the reporter from the local newspaper by the name of Peter Scott called the ward to inquire about
the progress of Mr. Jones's injury status. The registered nurse by the name Rachel who received
the phone disclosed to the reporter that Mr. Jones will not be able to play again without the
consent of Mr. Jones. As a result, the reporter reported this information to the general public in
the sports section of the local newspaper. The actions of the nurse in this situation constitute a
breach of the patient-doctor relationship. This is so because a breach of the doctor-patient
relationship is said to have occurred when the private information of the patient is disclosed to
the third party without that patient’s consent with exceptions to this including court orders and
state medical officers (Cherry & Jacob, 2018). the private information based on the patient-
doctor confidentiality covers all the medical records of the patients as well as the opinions that a
doctor forms after examining the patients. Based on the case study, the nurse caring for Mr.
Jones disclosed her opinion about the status of the patient’s injury to the reporter after the
examination. This, therefore, constituted a breach of patient-doctor relationship making a nurse
liable for legal action. This is so because patient confidentiality is protected under the state law
which stipulates that if the disclosure of the patient private information without his consent
causes harm of any kind to that patient, the patient can have a cause of action against a medical
practitioner for the invasion of privacy (Char, Shah, & Magnus, 2018). The action of the nurse

disclosing the private information of the patient without his consent resulted in more harm to the
patient based on the case study. This is so because immediately the patient realized that his
private information has been disclosed, he became furious and the nurse noticed that he looked
pale and sweaty. This shows that the condition of Mr. Jones worsened after his private
information was disclosed to the third party by the nurse without his consent. Therefore, the
patient is at liberty to take a cause of action against the nurse for inverting his privacy as
provided by the state law.
Another legal action that comes out clearly in this case study is medical malpractice. All
medical practitioners have a duty to care for their patients by providing them quality care that is
based on the medical standard of care (Gannon, 2018). Therefore, medical negligence is said to
have occurred when a medical practitioner offers medical care to patients in a way that is not
based on their medical standard of care (Delaney, 2018). According to (Wu et al., 2019) there are
two aspects that the actions of any medical practitioner must meet for them to constitute medical
negligence. First, the actions of the nurse must have deviated from the applicable medical
standards and secondly, the actions of the nurse must have resulted to harm to the patients
(Ewuoso, 2019). Based on the case study, there are various instances that nurses that care for Mr.
Jones committed medical negligence. For example, after Mr. Jones had come out of surgery, his
condition deteriorated. However, when Mr. Jones raised a concern that he feels something was
left on his leg during surgery, the nurses caring for him ignored his concern. One nurse
specifically omitted the concerns that Mr. Jones had raised when documenting medical
information about Mr. Jones even though she came back one week later to correct it. The actions
of the nurse in this situation constitute medical negligence because first, the action of the nurse
omitting the concerns raised by the patients was against the medical standards of nurse practice.

This is so because one of the medical standards of nurses’ practice requires that nurses provide
patient-centered care by taking into considerations all the concerns raised by patients in the
process of care delivery (Frith , 2018). By ignoring the concerns raised by Mr. Jones as
suggested in the case study, the nurse deviated from the medical standard of practice and
committed medical malpractice. Also, the actions of the nurse of ignoring the concerns raised by
Mr. Jones constituted malpractice because it resulted in more harm to the patient. This is so
because as a result of leaving some unnecessary materials in the leg of Mr. Jones during
operations and ignoring the concern raised by Mr. Joni about the same, the health of Mr. Jones
deteriorated. For example, Mr. Joni was experiencing fluctuations in temperature and purulent
discharge was coming out of his wound. Also, the nurses noted that Mr. Jones was experiencing
increased bouts pain which in normal operation is relieved by analgesia. Therefore, there is
enough evidence that the patient suffered more harm after the operation which confirms that the
nurses committed medical malpractice. Hence, a patient is at liberty to file a lawsuit against these
nurses for malpractice.
A discussion on the ethical issues on the ethical issues
One of the ethical issues that comes out clearly in this case study is the issue of patient’s
autonomy. The patient’s autonomy sometimes called the patient’s right to self-determination
dictates that the patients reserve the right to make a decision about the medical procedure to be
carried out on him including refusing treatment (Howe et al., 2018). Based on this ethical
principle, nurses can only advice the patients but not coerce them to make the decision (The
American Journal of Nursing, 2015). Based on the case study, there are instances where the
patient’s right to self-determination was not respected. For example, when the patient realized
that his private information was disclosed to the third party without his consent, the patient was

furious and refused further treatment since he wanted to go out of the hospital and find his
lawyer. However, the nurses caring for him did not allow him to leave the hospital and they went
ahead to subject the patient to further treatment against his wish. The actions of the nurse in this
situation went against the ethical principle of the patient’s right to self-determination and
therefore, constitute an ethical issue.
Conclusion
Medical practitioners play a critical role in the delivery of quality care to patients in
healthcare facilities. Medical standards of practice and codes of conduct guide the nurses in
making the right decisions to the challenging needs of patients in the process of delivering
quality care. This means that all medical practitioners should be conversant with the medical
standard of practice and codes of ethics for them to provide quality care that is based on ethics
and legal terms. Legal and ethical concerns that have been reported in the field of healthcare
results from the actions of the nurses who are not conversant with codes of ethics and standard of
practice in the field of nursing. One of the main legal concerns that comes out clearly in this
essay is the breach of patient-doctor confidentiality. Another legal action that comes out clearly
in this case study is medical malpractice. One of the ethical issues that comes out clearly in this
case study is the issue of patient’s autonomy. since the nurses caring for Mr. Joni committed both
legal and ethical issues in the process of caring for Mr. Jones, it means that these nurses were not
conversant with the codes of ethics and medical standards of operation.

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