Health care ethics and medical law Required Response to Option
Review your classmates' discussion of the issues that were applied to the decision making process.
Explain whether you agree or disagree with all of the ethical considerations they provided, and provide additional notations on the potential positive and negative outcome(s) based on that decision.
Your responses should be at least 100 words.
Option 2: Ethics Committee Case Study John, a 32 year-old lawyer, had worried for several years about developing Huntington's chorea, a neurological disorder that appears in a person's 30s or 40s, bringing rapid uncontrollable twitching and contractions and progressive, irreversible dementia. It leads to death in about 10 years.
John's mother died from this disease. Huntington's is autosomal dominant and afflicts 50% of an affected parent's offspring. John had indicated too many people that he would prefer to die rather than to live and die as his mother had. He was anxious, drank heavily, and had intermittent depression, for which he saw a psychiatrist.
Nevertheless, he was still a productive lawyer. John first noticed facial twitching three months ago and two neurologists independently confirmed a diagnosis of Huntington's. He explained his situation to his psychiatrist and requested help committing suicide. When the psychiatrist refused, John reassured him that he did not plan to attempt suicide any time soon. However, when he went home, John pinned a note to his shirt to explain his actions and to refuse any medical assistance that might be offered, then, ingested all of his antidepressant medication.
His wife, who did not yet know about his diagnosis, found him unconscious and rushed him to the emergency room without removing the note. Respond to Tiffany Tiffany Mclemore 8:40pm Jul 6 at 8:40pm Manage Discussion Entry I have been assigned option 2: Ethics Committee Case Study What should the care team at the emergency room do? Looking at this from an ethical responsibility of the organization, the emergency care team should do everything they can to try and save John's life.
Even though he had a note on his shirt stating that he wanted to refuse and medical treatments offer, there is no proof for
1.) that he actually wrote that note himself and
2.) that he was even in the right state of mind while writing that note.
How does the chronic diagnosis affect the team's response to the acute condition?
The chronic diagnosis should not affect the emergency team response. They have sworn under oath to do everything in their power to save the lives of others and that should be the only thing on their minds when they come across a patient in John's condition. Were they informed? No, the team was not informed at first because even the wife whole called 911 didn't know why her husband was unconscious and had no idea that he had been diagnosed with Huntington's. Was the patient competent to make that decision?
From the eyes of the Ethics committee I would have to say that with John already being depressed, drinking heavily and recently telling his psychiatrist that he was thinking about committing suicide (even though he turned around and said he didn't mean it), John could have very well been in a whole different state of mind when writing that note (if he even did write it himself) or making the decision to take all those pills. Is there a surrogate decision- maker available?
The surrogate decision-maker could have been his wife.
Without him feeling out any medical papers before going into the hospital when a patient is unconscious, the decisions would normally go to the next of kin or their spouse. How should the diminished quality of life that is anticipated in the future affect the current decision?
John watched his mother die from the exact disease that he was diagnosed with and knows that patients normally don't make it past ten more years after being diagnosed with Huntington's disease.
However, with the support of his family and the fact that he was still a productive lawyer. Even though he was told he wouldn't make it past ten more years, his quality of life was not being cut short from this diagnosis.
How should the emergency staff weigh the various competing legal and regulatory duties?
Since the patient is unconscious, even with the written note (that could have been written and placed on his shirt by anyone) the hospital is obligated to do whatever is necessary to try and save John's life.
With his wife (his surrogate) there requesting treatment, that is who the hospital would be receiving their final decisions from.
The patient did not come to the hospital conscious enough to make any decisions so there for the hospital should go ahead and process with whatever needs to be done.
Health Care Ethics & Medical Law Ashford University Text:Bustillos, D. (2013). Health care ethics and medical law