Radiation

The concepts of ethics are illustrated in this case study. “Ethics is a concern of humans who have freedom of choice.” These ethical choices were decisions made by individuals who are responsible for the consequences of their actions. Responsibility, accountability, and liability are issues that are raised by radiation technology.

The primary factors responsible for the problems detailed in this case are caused by poor software design by the manufacturers, the poor human interfaces lead by medical technicians and doctors, and the lack of proper training provided by the hospital administration. The errors cause by human application or machine technology could have been prevented if radiation software had the appropriate safeguards to control the amount of radiation delivered, if treatment administrators were more aware of treatment errors shown on the screen, and if the hospitals provided proper training to their staff.

All medical technicians, doctors, hospital administrators, and medical equipment and software manufactures are equally to blame for these incidents. They need to collaborate with each other to create a common set of safety procedures, training procedures, software features and a reporting policy to prevent insufficient radiation treatments. Each of them had the capacity to prevent “accidents” from occurring and need to take responsibility for their own mistakes.

The use of a nationally mandated central reporting agency could reduce the numbers of radiation therapy errors in the future if and only if the input data is current and accurate. This would allow the state to identify trends and exposures to help identify safety concerns.

If I were to design electronic software for a linear acceleration, I would include an initial patient profile that must be entered by the Radiation Oncologist on the first visit or treatment. This would include a login ID to track the Oncologist who entered each patient’s data, settings and treatment...