Write a 1,050- to 1,400-word paper in which you describe a current ethical health care issue such as the following: transplant allocation; refusal of care, such as a blood transfusion; patient noncompliance with treatment; biomedical research; patient dumping; compliance with new health care requirements; and so on.
Examine and evaluate how each of the four major ethical principles can be applied to this issue.
• Respect for autonomy: respecting the decision-making capacities of autonomous persons; enabling individuals to make reasoned informed choices.
• Beneficence: this considers the balancing of benefits of treatment against the risks and costs; the healthcare professional should act in a way that benefits the patient
• Non maleficence: avoiding the causation of harm; the healthcare professional should not harm the patient. All treatment involves some harm, even if minimal, but the harm should not be disproportionate to the benefits of treatment.
• Justice: distributing benefits, risks and costs fairly; the notion that patients in similar positions should be treated in a similar manner.