Week 1

Ethical Administrative Issue

Doris Stewart

HCS 335 Healthcare Ethics and Social Responsibility

July 21, 2011

Kristin Hall

Ethical Administrative Issue

Ethical administrative issues are administrative ethics is concerned with how providers influence the ethics of their members, how the members influence each other and the organization, and how the members and organization deal with the community and government. The article’s ethical issues are speaking to family members about life support, informed consent, and the patients who die because of life support issues. Communicating well and effectively puts the family at ease. The decisions making process as well as the actual ethical issue such as autonomy, beneficence, and nonmalfience is discussed.

There are a few ethical issues is tough because patients that die in the intensive care unit due to the fact of life support being given or not given. The ethical issues relate to informed consent and privacy with communication. According to The American Thoracic Society (ATS),”withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining therapy because of medical uncertainty is an important reason that goals of therapy may be undefined.” Bioethics is for the good of the patient especially in life support situations due to the fact it deals with ethical implications. The physician has to deal with privacy issues when speaking with the family to inform them of the patients’ medical condition. If there was not an advanced directive prior to treatment the doctor must use altruism. Communicating with the family about the patient is hard because patients’ family believe that the physician could have done more to save the life of the individual.

Some of the ethical issues are allowing the patient to die is a violation of beneficence, and making a patient take measures to ensure life is a violation of autonomy.

“In the United States a consensus has been achieved that autonomy takes precedence over other considerations...