Part 1 – Case Study – Ethics Issues Versus Legal Issues Review the following case and provide your impression by responding to the questions below. Provide supporting references for your position. Write at least 3 to 5 pages of commentary, with supporting references in APA format. Should informed consent be different for different cultures? Why or why not? How should medical professionals and health care organizations balance cultural preferences with full disclosure? Discuss the legal, regulatory, and informed consent issues applicable to the case study. How would you apply the policies of informed consent when dealing with ethical dilemmas in health care? Should adolescents be allowed to make their own life and death decisions? A patient is brought to the emergency room after an accident. The physicians believe that he will die if he does not receive a blood transfusion, but he says that he is a Jehovah’s Witness and will not accept blood. A cancer patient has undergone months of debilitating therapy with discouraging results, she says she does not want any more treatment. What if they were 15 or 16 years old? Would they have the same rights or could their wishes be overruled? If there is one Golden Rule of contemporary bioethics, it is that competent adults are legally and ethically empowered to make health care decisions for themselves. Competent, in this context, means able to understand the choices and the consequences of the choices made. People base these decisions on values, preferences, personal experiences, religious beliefs, the availability of alternatives, level of pain and suffering, economic consequences, or any combination of these and other factors. Except in unusual situations, parents are presumed to be in the best position to make these decisions for their children. Children, especially young children, are assumed to have neither the cognitive skills nor the mature judgment to make complex choices that may have far-reaching health consequences. Parents share the consequences of the decision so they make decisions with the best interests of their children and themselves in mind. But, adolescents are neither children nor fully mature adults. Where do they fit in this scheme? (Levine, 2007, p. 164–165) Part 2 – Case Study – Informed Consent Review the following case and provide your impression by responding to the questions below. Provide supporting references for your position. Write at least 3 to 5 pages of commentary, with references in APA format. Should informed consent be different for different cultures? Why or why not? How should medical professionals and health care organizations balance cultural preferences with full disclosure? Discuss the legal, regulatory, and informed consent issues applicable to the case study. How would you apply the policies of informed consent when dealing with ethical dilemmas in health care? Is informed consent still central to medical ethics? The Patient Self-Determination Act, a federal law that went into effect in 1991, requires health care institutions to advise patients about their right to accept or refuse medical care and to offer them an opportunity to create an advance directive indicating their medical choices, should they become incompetent. Nevertheless, there is considerable evidence that patients and their designated health care proxies are not brought into decision making at the end of life in a timely and effective way. There are also some limits on what kind of information must be provided to patients. In the 1993 case of Arato v. Avedon, the California Supreme Court supported information sharing and patient-centered decision making, but ruled that doctors need not supply explicit statistical information about life expectancy to patients. Nonetheless, the concept of informed consent from Western political and ethical theories that place a high value on individual self-determination, remains a central principle in the U.S. Cultural groups who have different traditions may not share this value. (Levine, 2007, p. 20) Additional Requirements Written communication: Written communication should be free of errors that detract from the overall message. APA formatting: Your assessment should be formatted according to APA (6th edition) style and formatting. Length: Submit both parts in one document of 6–10 typed and double-spaced pages. Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 point. Research: Use a minimum of six credible sources. Refer to the Research Resources in the left navigation menu for help finding credible sources. Reference Levine, C. (2007). Taking sides: Clashing views on bioethical issues (12th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education
