Ethics Assignment

Case Based Ethics Assignment

Should the medical team allow this delay in informing the mother of her daughter’s death?

Respect for autonomy means respect for the decision-making capacities of a person. An autonomous decision is made when there is intentionality and understanding and when there are no controlling influences.The patient acts based on their own values, beliefs and desires. This shows how significant informed consent and patient’s confidentiality is in patient care (Phipps 2016). A patient has the right to obtain truthful information about their health because their health is intricately linked with their sense of self or to decide how to proceed with treatment. Based on the case, our patient is Ishraq. She is underage so her parents have parental autonomy to make treatment choices and give consent on her behalf. When she passed away, Ishraq mother’s has a right to know about the medical status of her child while Ishraq father’s has his right to prevent medical information from being disclose, which he believes is in the best interest of his wife. 

Beneficence means to act in your patient’s best interest, that is by providing a good therapeutic outcome and by preventing harmful outcomes. This ethical principle is interrelated to medical paternalism. A doctor do not feel obligated to tell the patient their diagnosis and prognosis if they feel it isn’t in the best interest of the patient . Non-maleficence, on the other hand, is to do no harm, be it in the form of physical, psychological, emotional, long term, short term or culturally (Phipps 2016). The doctor may not want to inform Ishraq’s mother on the death of her daughter as they think that is better for her mental health which can also affects her physically. This is because the news might overwhelmed her and affects her pregnancy. They would also practice non-maleficence as they try to not inflict any emotional harm although it might only be momentarily.

There are three elements in justice. Firstly, the fair distribution of healthcare resources, benefits, risks, and costs. Next, right-based justice and also legal justice (Niselle 2013). Justice looks at how we treat individual patients in relation to the other population of whether a treatment they may have autonomously consented to ought to be provided for them by the State (Phipps 2016). It is applicable as the medical services are accessible to everyone regardless of their culture, race, nationality and gender. Ishraq is able to access better treatments in the United States without being discriminated. Doctors should be just and not discriminate against a particular gender in respecting their autonomy. However, there may be a cultural difference. Bangladeshi men usually take the lead to in making decision on what or when to inform their spouse but the cultural norm may also only apply to Ishraq’s father as we cannot assume whether the mother wants to know.

I will inform the mother of her daughter’s death if she ask about it. This is because I believe that the principle, autonomy far outweighs beneficence and non-maleficence in this particular case. Ishraq’s mother has her right to know about the condition of her daughter and we, however experienced, cannot predict how she would react in the situation based on all our previous patients. She is her own person and has her own views, beliefs and values. She, herself will know what is best for herself and the continuous worrying about her daughter’s condition will also affect her pregnancy. I think that she is entitled to grief for the death of her daughter. I also feel that I did exercise beneficence as, in my perception, informing her of the news might be what is best for her in the future. She may be able to accept the news of her daughter’s death and find peace with it. The father will not have to frequently visit the hospital. Instead, he can rest and look after his wife and unborn child. However, I did not practice non-maleficence as breaking the news about it would definitely caused pain to her emotionally and psychologically. Nevertheless, if she did not enquire about it, I would not inform her. This is because they are from a different culture and a language barrier also exist. The interpreter might not be able to break the bad news well in comparison with the father. I also have to take into consideration their ways of life. The principle, justice is applicable when treatment is provided to Ishraq impartially and when both parents’ autonomy are respected without discriminating based on gender. To overcome the language barrier, the hospital even employ an interpreter to communicate with the family.

References

Niselle, P. 2013, ‘ Essential learning: law and ethics’, New Doctor, vol. 6, no. 1, viewed 18 May 2016, http://www.medicalprotection.org/uk/casebook-and-resources/new-doctor/vol-6-no-1-2013/essential-learning-law-and-ethics

Phipps, ME 2016, ‘An introduction to ethics and biomedical ethics’, MED1011- Ethics Module, Lecture materials, Semester 1, 2016, Monash University.

Things you have to bring to college

1. Documents- school leaving certificate, identification card, passport(for international students), SPM/ O-levels results, passport-sized photo
Always remember to bring a few copies of all the above the documents because you never know when they need it. All the above documents also have to be certified by an officer or you can ask your principal. Don't forget to bring the original copy when you want someone to certify any documents. I brought the original copies of the documents too but it's not really necessary.

2. Money

Money is one of the most important things you have to bring and you have to bring quite a large amount of it. If you forget to bring anything, you can always buy it at the nearby convenience store or shopping mall. Besides, you have to buy textbooks based on the subjects you choose, eat out and for those who take Mathematics may sometimes have to buy a CAS calculator which cause, during my time, RM770.

3. Clothings- T-shirts,pants, shorts, underwear, bras, pajamas

4. Footwear- Slippers, shoes, hotel slippers,socks

Bring a few pairs of comfortable shoes as you might have to walk a lot of your campus is large. Hotel slippers are for those who stay in hostel. The floors are most likely quite dirty and dusty.

5. Stationeries- Pen, pencil, mechanical pencil, lead, scissors, glue, staplers, ruler, correction tape, erasers, sharpeners, calculator, notebooks, writing pad

Don't forget to bring your calculator because subjects like Mathematics and accounting requires you to use a calculator. For some courses, you had to buy a new programmeble calculator which cause quite a lot. It is advisable to buy a second hand one as you will only be using it for a year.

6. Pails, containers

Pails are for putting wet clothings whereas containers are used to store anything that needs to be stored

7. Detergents, soaps, brush, coins, hanger, clothing hanger( the one you put on the door or your cabinet)

If your hostel provides you laundrette service, bring lots of coins as the machines worked based on coins. If yours don't, you have to hand wash your clothings. So bring whatever soaps or detergents or things that makes washing your clothes easy.

Please remember to bring dishwashing soaps, sponge and a small plastic container to put the stuff.

8. Plates, bowls, forks, wooden chopstick, spoon, tiffin carrier, pins to seal food that is unfinished, knife and wooden chopping board.

9. Foods- biscuits, instant noodle, packaged drinks, and everything you wanna eat

10. Rice cooker, induction cooker, steamer, microwave

Most hostel lets you use a rice cooker. And yes, you can cook a lots of food using a rice cooker

11. Iron

Only if you have to wear formal clothings

12. Small umbrella, backpack, recycling bag

Selangor's malls does not provide plastic bags and will charge you 20 cents per bag.

13. Comb, hair ties, hair oils, hair pins

14. Jacket

The campus area is usually air conditioned. To those who can't stand the cold, you have to bring!

15. Old cloth, feather duster, plastic bags, dustbins

Your tables and bed might be dirty and dusty so you probably have to clean it up on the first day. We have to clean our rooms as they only provide cleaning services for the lounge, kitchen and toilets.

16. Bed sheets, pillow case

The hostel will only provide you a set of bed sheet and pillow case, if you want to change it, remember to bring it yourself. A pillow is given as a complimentary welcome gift.

Stories in 100 Words

All of these stories are real by people who submitted it to Reader's Digest

Click here to read more articles at Reader's Digest

A SOLDIER’S SUPRISE

by Gail Litrenti-Benedetto, Park Ridge, Illinois

It is spring of 1943 during World War II. Standing among hundreds of new soldiers at Camp Grant, in Illinois, my father, Sam, just 18 years old, waits as a truck slowly drives by. A full field pack is randomly tossed to each soldier. “How strange,” my father thinks, as he sees his last name, Litrenti, marked on each item in his pack. “How did they know it was me when they tossed the pack?” He was impressed! Beating all odds, my father was tossed a field pack from World War I—his own father’s.

 A MOTHER’S WISDOM

by Lori Armstrong, Kelseyville, California

I have always worn my children’s birthstones around my neck. One morning, when I was late for work, my infant son Larry’s topaz birthstone fell from my gold chain. I frantically searched for it, whispering to myself, “I lost my Larry, but I will get him back.”

That day, Larry’s cardiologist called with test results from one of his first checkups. He would need emergency heart surgery. Happily, the operation was a success, and I whispered in Larry’s ear, “I thought I lost you, but I knew I’d get you back.”

THE GOOD DOCTOR 

by Danica Helfin, Tifton, Georgia

Toto was a white dog with a small red tongue, and his stuffing was red as well. When his seams began to come apart beneath his knitted collar, it looked to my six-year-old eyes as though he were bleeding. That night, my father left for his shift in the emergency room with Toto wrapped in a blanket. The next day, Dad showed me the X-rays and Polaroid photographs of the
surgery. Beneath the bandage on Toto’s neck was a clean row of stitches. I still have the injury report! I love you, Dad.

A SMALL FORTUNE
by Ron Fleming, Fort Drum, New York

While walking across an open, grassy field, I became excited as my hand swooped toward the ground like an eagle attacking its prey. I picked up half of a $5 bill. I continued to walk around looking for the other half but thought to myself it would be impossible to find it on such a windy day. As I lifted my head, I spotted the other half of the bill tangled in crabgrass. Somehow, finding two halves of a ripped $5 bill felt better than working for a twenty.

BACKUP BAND-AID
Babette Lazarus, New York, New York

I was riding the subway and happened to be seated between two young guys. The one on the right eyed the slightly grungy Band‑Aid on my thumb and said, “You should really change that, you know. You have to keep it clean.” Then the one on my left said, “Here, I have one,” and pulled a fresh Band‑Aid out of his knapsack. “I keep them on me because I’m always hurting myself.” Incredulous, I thanked him, changed my bandage, and got off at my stop feeling pretty good about people, life, and New York City.

Just Keep Folding

            Having explored the myths from ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt, my curiosity was piqued in eighth grade by a simple legend from Japanese lore. If you fold one thousand paper cranes, the gods will grant you one wish. I took it as a challenge. My previous forays into origami had ended poorly, but I was so excited to begin my quest that this detail seemed inconsequential. My art teacher loaned me a piece of origami paper and, armed with an online tutorial, my quest began. Like an early prototype of the airplane, I ascended towards my dreams for a glorious moment before nose-diving into the ground. The first crane was a disastrous failure of wrinkly lines and torn paper. Too embarrassed to ask for another, I turned to my stack of Post-it notes. By the third attempt, I ended up with a sticky pink paper crane. Holding that delicate bird, I was flooded with triumph and elation.

             The first two hundred cranes were all crafted from Post-it notes. Armed with a pack of highlighters, I decorated each piece of paper individually. I folded cranes at home, between classes, and in the car. My fingers were permanently sticky from the glue I scraped off every square. Slowly, my collection grew: first ten, then fifty, then one hundred. Before the task could become monotonous, I started experimenting. How small was it possible for a crane to be? Smaller than a golf ball? Smaller than a dime? Small enough to sit on the end of a pencil? Any size was attainable. I could make a crane smaller than almost any arbitrary form of measurement. Soon I could finish a crane in fifty seconds or with my eyes closed. Anything square and foldable became my medium. Paper towels, candy wrappers, and aluminum foil joined my vibrant menagerie of carefully folded paper. I was unstoppable; that wish was as good as mine.

              By six hundred cranes, the increasing demands of high school academics caused my pace to slow. I despaired. I wouldn’t let this be another ambitious project that I couldn’t finish. My cranes mattered to me. As an outlet for expression, they served as a way to defuse frustration and sadness, and a source of pride and joy. Their creation allows me to bring beauty to the world and to find a sense of order in the bustle and chaos of life. There is a lot of beauty to be found in tiny things. I’m reminded that little gestures have a lot of meaning. I have given away cranes to my friends as a pick-me-up on bad days, and I have made cranes to commemorate people, such as the dark green crane I made the day my grandmother died. They are a symbol of hope to remind me what I have accomplished.

               So, I pushed myself to keep working and to keep folding one crane at a time. My determination paid off, and in the summer after sophomore year, my passion was reinvigorated. One month before the end of junior year, I folded my thousandth paper crane. As I leaned over the open drawer brimming with origami pieces in a multitude of sizes and colors, I felt a rush of satisfaction and triumph. Not only was 1,000 cranes an achievement in its own right, but I proved to myself that I can finish what I start.

               The world is filled with big numbers. College tuition, monthly rent, and car prices deal in the many thousands. Those figures are incomprehensible to someone who has never interacted with anything so large, and I wanted to understand them. A thousand will never simply be a number to me: it is hundreds upon hundreds of hand-folded cranes combined with years of effort.

            So what did I wish for? It turns out, I didn’t need the wish. I learned I have the power to make things happen for myself.

Written by Jodie

Oreo Nutella Cheesecake Recipe

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cups oreo cookie crumbs
1/4 cup melted butter

1 1/2 cups cream
1 tbsp dissolved gelatine
1 cup nutella
250g cream cheese


Click here to watch the tutorial

A Sample College Essay

Last week, high school senior Kwasi Enin found out he had been accepted to every college he applied to — including all eight Ivy League schools.

How did Enin pull of this impressive feat? The Long Island student scored a 2250 on his SAT, had taken 11 AP courses, and was in the top 2% of his graduating class, but that doesn’t necessarily show him fully as an applicant. The answer could be in his college entrance essay.

Click here to read his essay

A Blessing in Disguise

             "What! They do not have any seats left on that plane either?" I think to myself furiously. I couldn't believe it. Every other budget plane was packed. My normally calm and pleasant countenance slowly changed and my face contorted in an all-consuming anger. Nostrils flaring, my mouth quivers, slurring words that spew out of my mouth like a volcano releasing its pent up lava. All my sister could say was sorry. In the series of even of this month, she has forgotten to relay one important message from Dan.

                The 2014 World Championship Cycling Competition will be held in China. All year round, I had been training and working hard just so I could compete in this annual competition. Come rain or shine, I would finish my daily 20 km round the town and complete my training plan that has been carefully drafted by my personal trainer. At that moment, I felt that all my hard work was for nothing. All the time and effort. Wasted. All that toiling and I have come up empty-handed. Everything happened because she forgot to inform me the date of the competition. All the seats were booked as it was the holiday season. it was awful but nothing can be done. I have to wait for the next competition.

                 We are sitting in front of the television watching the 8 o'clock news. Two years have passed since that day. All eyes and ears are on the television. As the reporter began speaking about a Malaysian Airline plane, each one of us sat up straight, hoping and praying that she will bring us good news after what had happened two years ago. The reporter informed us that the search for the plane was still in vain. Nothing could explain what had happened. Any theory and speculation were possible. All we had were broken hearted family members and loved ones. The whole nation are still grieving for the death of more than 200 passengers and crew. Two years back, on the plane I was going to book to China went missing somewhere around the Indian Ocean and till this day, no one could explain why.

                 Every single time I read news about the disappearance of the plane, my heart saddened and goes out to all who lost someone. Despite that, I always heaved a sigh of relieve and was grateful that my sister forgot to inform me the date of the competition. It was indeed a blessing in disguise.

                If I had board that plane on that day at that momebnt, my family members would have received a text message just minutes before the prime minister informed the world about the tragic incident. It said, " Malaysian Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond doubt that the MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived."