Ethical issues often arise in the healthcare industry. These issues mostly involve the patients, family members and also the healthcare workers, in general. The healthcare industry is very concerned the welfare of its clients. When ethical dilemma occurs, the affected health care provider must be in a position to make sound decisions to solve them. The ability to make the right decision involves the understanding of the ethical issues, their dimensions and the guidelines for their solution.

Dimensions of the Ethical Dilemma

ition for the ethical dilemma is that there must be different courses of actions to choose from (Csikai & Bass, 2001).

In determining the constituents of an ethical dilemma, it’s necessary to make a distinction between, ethics, values, morals, laws and policies. Ethics is the accepted code of conduct for a certain profession. Values, on the other hand, describe ideas that we regard as worthy. Wheial justice (Munson & Munson, 2004). and strengthen our relationships with others. Law and policies, on the other hand, are a system of rules that are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior. In our case, the health care team must look into all these dimensions of the ethical dilemma so that they can come up with a definitive solution to the problem.

In the case forwarded by the concerned health care providers, there are many dimensions of the ethical dilemma that should be considered before making a definitive decision. The father of the Naturopathic physician is admitted to ICU with terminal cancer. He is 96 years old. The patient looks disoriented, confused, very skinny appears underfed and covered with bruises. His daughter insistssubstances, somehealth care providers note that the patient is in pain after the application of those substances. They feel that the daughter wants to hasten the death of his father.

The counselor should consider all the dimensions of the presented ethical dilemma. He should consider the ethics that govern the healthcare profession. Is euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide accepted in this profession and legalized (Csikai & Bass, 2001)? The values should also be taken into considerations. He should assess the value of allowing the daughter to administer these unknown substances. The moral principles should also be considered. The counselor should assess whether it’s morally right to subject a patient to suffering due to the application unknown substances that are not scientifically proven to be effective. Though the daughter may have good moral intention of helping her father, she should understand where she can or not be of help.

Ethical Issues

Ethical issues may arise from patients, family members, medical staff members and the physicians themselves. Some of the issues surrounding problems for which ethics consultation may be requested include advance directives, surrogate decision-making, and refusal of treatment or conflicts with the caregivers (Munson & Munson, 2004). Other issues include foregoing life-sustaining treatment, do not attempt resuscitation orders and other issues perceived as ethical problems. It, for all healthcare workers to be prepared to tackle these ethical issues as they come on their way.

Healthcare ethics require a patient’s beliefs and wishes regarding all aspects of their health. The healthcare industry, above others, has high regards to the issues surrounding the welfare of their clients (Csikai & Bass, 2001). They are necessitated to make ethical decisions on a daily basis. The major ethical issues that they come across on a daily basis include confidentiality, transmission of diseases and aggressive marketing practices. They also include patient welfare, provided information to advertising companies, terminally ill patients, sexual harassment and issues arising from various therapies.

When healthcare providers are faced with these ethical issues its significance for them to follow the decision-making model to help them resolve these issues. The first step involves the identification of the problem (Kass, 2001). insists on using unknown substances to treat her real father. These substances are not even scientifically proven to be efficient in the presented health problem. Try to understand whether it’s the belief of the daughter to use natural means of treatment. Ask the daughter whether it has ever worked before and if it worked, what was the need of bringing the patient to the hospital. Understanding the problem well will lead to the right decision.

The second step involves referring to the code of ethics to see whether the issue is addressed there. The health care worker should review the relevant literature to understand how similar cases were treated there before (Csikai & Bass, 2001). In our case, this seems to be a case of euthanasia where the daughter wants to assist the father to die possibly in a bid to relieve his pain and suffering. If you find an exact issue, you can consider how the issue was tackled and apply it to the current situations. The third step involves determining the nature and dimension of the dilemma. Consider the moral principles and also consult widely even from your fellow health workers.

The fourth step involves generating potential course of action. In this step, you should generate as many courses of action as possible. Try to be creative and consider all the options. You can also seek the assistance of your colleagues to help in the generation of ideas. In the fifth step, you should consider the potential consequences of all the options and determine the course of action (Munson & Munson, 2004). In the presented case, what would be the consequences of refusing the daughters demand to use natural treatment, and then the father dies. How will the health worker explain this to the daughter? Consider the information you have gathered and the priorities you have set evaluate each option and assess the potential consequences of all the parties involved. The sixth step involves evaluating the selected course of action, and the last step involves the implementation of the course of action.

Application of the Core Ethical Principles

Moral principles are viewed as the cornerstone of the ethical guidelines. These ethical guidelines can not address all the ethical issues. Reviewing these moral principles often helps to clarify the issues involved in a certain situation (Csikai & Bass, 2001). The first principle is known as the principle of beneficence. It reflects the counselor’s responsibility to contribute to the welfare of the client. It just means to do good, to be proactive and prevent harm where possible. In the presented case, the healthcare worker should do good by stopping the daughter from administering the unknown substances to the patient. Advice the daughter that those substances are adverse to the health of the patient as evidenced by the pain upon administration.

individual the freedom of choice and action (Kass, 2001). Giving patient independence should be regulated so that they don’t end up making decisions that can harm others or themselves. In the presented case, the patient is critically ill and not in a position to make decisions about his health. The health care providers should take the responsibility of helping the relatives make a good decision that will be beneficial to the patient. That’s why the daughter should be advised that using natural treatment for a patient in the ICU might not be the best treatment option.

The third principle is the nonmaleficence. This principle describes the concept of, not causing harm to others. It’s often explained as “above all do no harm to others.” It reflects the idea of not intentional inflicting intentional harm and not engaging in actiothers (Csikai & Bass, 2001). The health care providers should, as a result, use this principle to advise the daughter that using unknown substances for the treatment have the potential of harming the father. Instead, she should allow the health workers to apply the modern technology to treat her sick father.

om others (Kass, 2001). In the presented case, the critically sickas this goes against this principle.

Conclusion

Healthcare providers should be conversant with the ethics so that they can solve ethical issues and dilemmas in their profession. In the presented case, they should not allow the daughter to use natural treatment in a patient admitted in ICU. That is going against the moral principles, and the health workers should strive to make her understand this fact. They should employ the modern medical technology to manage the patient’s condition while following the ethics.

References

Csikai, E. L., & Bass, K. (2001). Health care social workers’ views of ethical issues, practice, and policy in end-of-life care. Social Work in Health Care, 32(2), 1-22.

Kass, N. E. (2001). An ethics framework for public health. American journal of public health, 91(11), 1776-1782.

Munson, R., & Munson, M. (2004). Intervention and Reflection: basic issues in medical ethics. Thomson/Wadsworth.

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