Ethical Reasoning
Health practitioners are bound by a number of ethical principles. This paper will describe some of these ethical principles that are autonomy, beneficence, paternalism, utility, justice, veracity, fidelity, and confidentiality. The latter principle, confidentiality will then be discussed further and applied to a case scenario.
The principle of autonomy involves the ability to freely make decisions or choices without external coercion. Beneficence is the obligation to do good and actively promote benevolent acts such as charity and kindness. It may also embody the injunction not to cause harm. Confidentiality focuses on the concept of privacy. It states that information disclosed by others should be kept confidential and should only be shared with others in instances where it will benefit the person in question or when there is a direct threat to others. Justice has broad meaning. It requires comparable treatment to be accorded to like cases. Fidelity refers to the obligation for one to be faithful to his or her commitments. Veracity is the duty to be honest and to never lie or deceive others. Lastly, the ethical principle of utility states that behaviors or actions are correct or appropriate if they promote pleasure and happiness and wrong if they elicit pain or displeasure (Smeltzer, Bare, Hinkle, & Cheever, 2009, p. 29).
Confidentiality when applied to patient scenarios requires health professionals to keep all information disclosed to them by their patients and any information they might discover when treating them confidential. They should also institute measures to restrict access to such information to authorized personnel. Such information should only be disclosed to others with the patient’s explicit consent (Buppert, 2008, pp. 269-271). This principle is applicable to a case scenario involving Mr. X who has just been diagnosed with gonorrhea. The ethical dilemma for the physician in this case emerges due to the fact that Mr. X does not want to disclose the information to his wife despite stating that he has unprotected sexual relations with her. The client fears that such disclosure will result in a messy divorce which may negatively affect his teenage daughters. The doctor decides to uphold the patient’s right to privacy despite being aware of the risk to Mr. X’s wife. Adherence to the ethical duty to maintain patient confidentiality is the positive aspect of this scenario. The potential harm to Mrs X is the negative element of the scenario.
In summary, this paper has described the following ethical principles autonomy, beneficence, paternalism, utility, justice, veracity, fidelity, and confidentiality. In addition, it has explored the issue of confidentiality as it relates to patient information and a case scenario on the same.
References
Buppert, C. (2008). Nurse practitioner’s business practice and legal guide. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Barlett Learning.
Smeltzer, S. C., Bare, B. G., Hinkle, J. L., & Cheever, K. H. (2009). Brunner and Suddarth’s textbook of medical surgical nursing (10th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
