Assignment:
Review the case- The confidentiality of Medical Information by Mark Siegler
1. Choose a case depicting a morally problematic situation in professional practice:
a. You may choose a ready-made case from our course materials or from somewhere else, such as from another book or one you find online. If you choose a case from this course, simply indicate the case you are using and provide a citation. If your case is from another source, reproduce the case with your assignment and provide a proper citation. If the case used is one already accompanied by analysis, then the analysis provided in the assignment must be differently focused or otherwise go beyond the discussion already given.
b. Alternatively, you may develop your own case. You may create a case that is totally fictional or one that is based on your own experience or the experience of someone you know or know of. If you choose a case that is in the news, but you author the case itself by writing and presenting the case description, then this will count as a case that you have created. Note: if you use a case based on real life but one that is not public knowledge, then you must follow the "Ethical Guidelines for Case Studies" in the Course Manual.
2. Choose and clearly articulate a professional ethics issue that pertains to your chosen case and the professional(s) involved in the case specifically. The issue should be important and reasonably controversial.
3. Write an ethical analysis of the case, focusing on the issue you choose by considering any relevant facts, ethical values and principles as well as the consequences of the different possible resolutions to the ethical issue that you have identified. You may use the ethical theories in your analysis if applicable but this is not necessary. Your goal is to provide an analysis that would defend a resolution that is the most satisfactory from a moral perspective. The strategy is to discuss, evaluate and compare the pros and cons of each different possible resolution by examining considerations that have bearing on determining which resolution is best from an ethical point of view.
4. Applying philosophical analysis to a real-life situation will also help to prepare you to discuss more general topics in professional ethics and engage in more abstract philosophical reasoning for new assignment.
NOTE:
To say that an issue is controversial is to say that people can reasonably disagree about how the issue ought to be resolved. Think of it like this: if the issue is not controversial, then it is not worth analyzing. Don't spend your valuable time and energy on an "issue" whose resolution is obvious to virtually everybody, such as "Should accountants embezzle funds?" or "Under what circumstances is it justifiable for medical doctors to murder their patients?"