Introduction: Medical Ethics
Introduction
Welcome to S2 RMPS.
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Much remains the same for rules:
1. Hand in your work on time.
2. Do your work to the best of your abilities.
3. Be respectful and understanding to each other.
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The third rule will be even more important than normal as we embark on our new topic on Medical Ethics. We will be discussing very sensitive topics which you will all have very different opinions on.
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You are more than welcome to discuss and debate your differing opinions, however you must be respectful to each other, especially when you disagree.
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You are being treated as the young adults you are and I expect you to act as such.
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Any silliness or disrespectful attitudes will be immediately referred.
Why Do We Learn Medical Ethics?
Quite simply, it is a fascinating topic which will affect you all in one way or another.
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You will also not get such an opportunity elsewhere in the school to discuss this topic and your own opinions and views about it.
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This is why it is so important that we study the following topics in medical ethics and the different views that accompany them:
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Abortion
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Euthanasia
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Organ Donation.
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Medical Ethics
Task 1
To get you all thinking about medical ethics you are going to be reading different medical cases.
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You are going to decide what should be done in each case AND give your reason why.
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Answer each Case Study in your GoogleDoc copy in your Classroom.
Case Study 1
A woman enters the surgery room with stomach pain. Sheundergoes tests and the doctors find that she will need surgery to fix an Aneurysm (clot) in her vein. Her chances of survival after the surgery are 50/50. If the aneurysm bursts she would be dead in minutes.
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The woman is a model and she worries she will be left with a scar that will impact on her work. She refuses surgery.
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Do you try to convince her to have the surgery or let her leave?
Case Study 2
A man is on death row and is due to be executed in 1 weeks time. He suddenly falls ill and is rushed to hospital. Even though he is going to die the doctors must give him medical care.
The Death Row Prisoner wants to donate his organs and refuses medical care so he can die naturally and then donate his organs.
This is against the law in the state you are currently in.
Prisoners cannot be organ donors and there is a shortage of organs.
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What do you do?
Do you let him die naturally and take his organs?
OR
Give him the required treatment and allow him to be executed a week alter and lose the organs?
Case Study 3
A 30 year old woman was diagnosed with brain cancer. She had undergone a whole range of treatments and surgery and she was beginning to lose her memory. The doctors had thought of one final surgery that would restore her memory and get rid of the cancer.
She agreed to the surgery but decided that if she were to go unconscious again she did not want to be resuscitated and left to die naturally.
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The woman becomes unconscious just before surgery.
What do you do?
Resuscitate her, against her wishes, so she can go through the surgery?
Honour her wishes and let her die.
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Case Study 4
A woman is in a plane crash and badly damages her leg.
The doctors fight to save it but there is a bad infection in it that has gron and will grow to the rest of the patients' body, and ultimately kill her.
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The woman is insistent that she does not want to lose her leg, even if it means she will die. The woman then becomes unconscious and her wife pleads with the doctors to save her wide's life by amputating her leg.
What do you do?
Stick to the patients' wishes?
Or
Amputate the leg according to her wife's wishes.
Case Study 5
A man is top of the heart transplant list and a heart has become available that is a match. Whilst getting ready for surgery another patient requires a heart who is deemed more urgent and sicker than the first man.
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The doctors are asked to provide progress reports on their patients to help decide who should get the heart.
The doctors could withdraw medicine from the first patient so his test results will make him look a lot worse than he actually is.
What do you do?
Withdraw the medicine to make the first patient more sick so he gets the heart?
Do nothing and let the second patient to get the heart?
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Optional
Challenge
Question
The NHS will not be able to cope with the rise of patients with dementia in the future.
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What potential solutions can you think of?
Case Study 6
A dictator is on his way to a diplomatic meeting, however he becomes ill on the plane and is the plane is forced to land in an emergency. he is taken to your hospital to be treated.
The dictator is responsible for the deaths of millions of people and there are serious issues with human rights in his country.
He requires emergency surgery on his heart, when you are operating on him his heart stops beating.
What do you do?
Resuscitate him and save his life?
Or
Allow him to die.