Scenario: You are a member of your hospital's medical ethics committee which has been presented with the following issue for consideration and recommendation. A female patient came to the hospital complaining of a recent onset of chronic headaches and impaired vision. Upon radiological testing, it was determined the cause of these problems was a large benign tumor growing on her brain.
Based on the type of tumor, there is a high probability that it will continue to grow in size, at the very least causing the patient to go completely and irreversibly blind. All of this is explained to the patient and she is told the only way to fix the problem is to open up her skull and surgically remove it.
After going home and doing some research on the Internet, she returns to the hospital to speak with her doctor and advises she is not going to consent to the procedure-instead, she is going to self-treat the condition using the naturalpathic and alternative medicine methods she read about on the Internet. The doctors know that if they don't get the tumor removed soon, the patient's eye-sight is at serious risk (if not worse). The physicians come to the ethics committee for guidance on how to handle this situation.
• What are some of the legal and ethical issues the committee has to consider?
• If the committee asked the patient to come talk to them to discuss the case, what would it ask or tell her?
• How aggressive should the doctors be in insisting that the patient accept their recommendation for brain surgery?
• What recommendation should the committee ultimately make to the physician and/or the patient?
• ALL reference citation on APA style answer the questions based on the scenario.