Question:

Write a report incorporating a critical Case Study discussion.Present an argument for and against the daughters’ and doctor’s decision of not informing Mrs Y of her illness nor its severity. This should be based on your literature review of Ethics and Law.

Answer:

Introduction

This is a case of requests for non-disclosure, which might be a significant distress for clinicians. A huge literature explains the opinion in support of and against disclosure in this case. In this piece, we would in brief review the literature on nondisclosure and offer few ideas for managing requests related to the one posed in the case.

The Code of Ethics for Nurses in Australia and its purpose – (waubrafoundation.org.au, 2015)

Nurses value quality nursing care for everyone, respect and kindheartedness for self and others, the diversity of populace, access to quality treatment and health care for everyone, informed choice making, a culture of security in nursing and health care, ethical administration of information’s, a socially, cost-effectively and ecologically sustainable surroundings promoting health and well-being.

The purpose is to recognize the basic ethical standards and principles towards which the nursing occupation is dedicated, and that are integrated in other authorized professional nursing guiding principle and standards of conduct, to offer nurses with a reference point from which to reflect on the conduct of themselves and others, to guide ethical choice making and carrying out, and to point out to the community the human rights standards and ethical values it can expect nurses to maintain.

The laws persist; with a small amount of exceptions that those are able of consenting to cure get the proper information revealed to them. Such a potential exception to revelation is the therapeutic privilege. (Cote A., 2000)

Therapeutic privilege denotes the preservation of information’s by the physician during the approval procedure in the trust that revelation of this information will cause damage or distress to the patient.‖ (Etchells E, Sharpe G, Burgess MM, Singer PA., 1996) Though it is considered that the failure to inform the reality in the perspective of the physician-patient relation is a vital element of therapy, it is uncertain whether physician is capable or right in making an importance decision regarding what is good for a capable patient. (Johnston C, Holt G., 2006)

The Argument:

In support of telling the fact

Moral opinions in support of fact telling could be acceptable on the base of autonomy, obligation of fidelity and the requirement for trust in the physician and patient relation as said by Beauchamp and Childress. (Beauchamp TL, Childress JF. 2001)

Autonomy

The moral standard of autonomy that guards patient self-willpower goes together by reality telling. Misleading and lying to patients violate the individual’s autonomy; also interfere with the principle of informed approval. Though doctors generally argued that the majority of patients do not desire to listen to the reality, indeed, there is a very slight proof in favor of this. Withholding information’s from patients’ damage their choice making capability. Moreover, when healing choices are restricted, and prediction is serious, knowing what to anticipate permits patients to get ready for what awaits rather than being overtaken by actions. (Sullivan RJ, Menapace LW, White RM, 2001)

Responsibility of loyalty and keeping of promise

Though physician’s duty of loyalty and assurance keeping means that they must be honest to their patients concerning their situations, at times, the want to guard patients from damage made clinicians less honest with the sick person. The clinician-patient relation, at its spirit, depends on truthful communiqué. Misleading the patients or lying weakens the authenticity of the respective physician as well as casts severe uncertainty on the reliability of the health profession all together. (Capozzi JD & Rhodes R., 2004)

Requirement for belief in physician-patient relation

Faith considered debatably the primary good value at the spirit of being an excellent physician. Consequently, patients’ belief physicians to offer them with info are on which they could base a choice regarding in order to carry on with a process or cure. Since faith could not be built up on dishonesty, it is vital that clinicians honestly reveal info’s to the patients. This would promote and sustain faith in the physician and patient relation; and also it would assist patients towards understanding and dealing with the hard conditions they might be going through thus helping them and keeping the moral values of beneficence. (Stirrat GM & Gill R., 2005)