Based upon your learning in the first 3 weeks and your own e

Based upon your learning in the first 3 weeks, and your own experiences, present your best definition of ethics healthcare. Why do you feel that it is so important to study ethics as part of your training in health service management?

Solution

In healthcare management, doctors and nurses have to make many critical decisions regarding the health, treatment of patients which may impinge on the patient. For taking a proper decision, a sound idea of what is wrong and right should be inculcated into each and every healthcare professional.

Ethics in healthcare is a set of principles, moral rules and beliefs that guides healthcare professionals to take decisions about medical care.

It is important to study ethics because the decisions taken by healthcare professionals can mean the difference between life and death for a person. For eg., an infant whose lungs are infected with a drug resistant microbe and is on ventilator – how long do you keep the infant on the ventilator? Pulling the infant out of the ventilator will kill him in an hour; but how long do you keep the infant in the hope the infant improves? While the child is on the ventilator, you realize that the infant is passing blood in copious amounts in the urine, indicating that his kidneys are damaged, perhaps beyond repair? What do you do? Do you call the parents and tell them all the facts you know and help them take a decision or do you keep the ventilator running ? At times like this a good idea of what is right or wrong is needed.