Introduction
Healthcare practitioners are essential in providing patients with high-quality care. When it pertains to end-of-life care, there are some cases in which it may be determined that the treatment is no longer necessary, in which case, medical personnel may choose to discontinue it. This essay argues that medical experts should have the authority to decide when treatment is no longer beneficial and cease it if they choose.
This essay will analyze how each bioethical tenet relates to the paper’s topic and incorporate additional ethical notions, such as respect for humanity, integrity, standards of morality, and professional codes of behavior, to support this position. Furthermore, this paper justifies the moral assessment that was made when selecting what takes ethical primacy. It clarifies why it may be essential to make concessions on any one of the four tenets of bioethical conduct.
Balancing Autonomy, Beneficence, and Non-Maleficence
The idea of autonomy holds that every person has the right to control their own lives and bodies. This implies that people have the authority to decide on their medical care, including the option to refuse treatment, in the context of healthcare (Gómez-Vírseda et al., 2019). It may not be in the patient’s best interests to continue therapy when it is determined that the care is unproductive. As such, this is because ongoing treatment may cause unnecessary pain and discomfort while potentially prolonging the process of dying.
Physicians must respect the patient’s autonomy by ceasing treatment since doing so would go against the patient’s wants and values. The idea of autonomy is not absolute, and medical professionals must consider how their choices may affect other parties, including family members and society at large (Houska, A., & Loučka, 2021). Clinicians may need to balance autonomy and beneficence when the patient’s decision to refuse treatment could significantly harm others.
Physicians must benefit from operating in their clients’ best interests and advancing their health. It may be claimed that discontinuing treatment is genuinely in the patient’s greatest interest when continuing therapy is unlikely to offer the patient appreciable benefits (McCullough, 2020). This is because continued treatment could result in needless pain and suffering and even delay the dying process. Medical personnel must consider any possible damage their acts may create because the ideal of beneficence is not unqualified (Bester, 2020). Healthcare providers may need to compromise between goodwill and non-maleficence when discontinuing treatment that could damage the patient.
Justice, Dignity, and Veracity in Medical Decision-Making
Healthcare workers must act without malice toward patients to uphold the non-maleficence principle. Physicians might be obligated to continue to care even if it is seen as hopeless in situations where stopping the treatment could harm the patient (Finlay, 2020). Nonetheless, medical practitioners are responsible for doing no harm by stopping the medication when it is doubtful that they can offer the patient any significant benefits, which might even hurt them.
Considering patients’ requirements and available supplies, justice is a bioethical notion that encourages equal treatment. Physicians should ensure that patients receive equal care and that no assets are squandered on giving unnecessary care when it pertains to end-of-life care (Varkey, 2021). However, care provision may waste resources that could have been utilized to assist other patients if it is determined to be futile. Clinicians should be free to decide when care is pointless and stop doing so in such circumstances.
The bioethical field places a significant emphasis on the concept of human dignity. It acknowledges the intrinsic worth and value of every human being. Healthcare providers are responsible for upholding the client’s dignity following the notion of human dignity (Choo et al., 2021). As a result, individuals have the authority to decide how they will be treated, and physicians are responsible for always protecting the patient’s dignity. Clinicians do not, however, have to render medically ineffective assistance to uphold the notion of human worth (Choo et al., 2021). The concept of non-maleficence may be broken if someone’s illness is incurable because ongoing treatment may not be in their best interests and might even be harmful.
Another ethical idea that applies to this situation is veracity. Truthfulness is the obligation to disclose the truth. Providing truthful and accurate information to patients about their illnesses and available treatments requires sincerity in healthcare (Potvin et al., 2020). However, medical personnel may be bound by a duty to be honest with the individual and relatives about the insignificance of additional therapies if their illness is terminal and ongoing treatment is therapeutically pointless (Potvin et al., 2020). Medical practitioners might need to stop providing care to keep the patient from suffering additional harm.
Ethical Frameworks Guiding the Withdrawal of Futile Care
Healthcare providers can get honest advice from the standards of morality and professional behavior. According to the code of medical ethics of the American Medical Association, physicians are responsible for delivering quality healthcare through an in-depth examination of the patient’s health status and requirements (Gómez-Vírseda et al., 2019). The statute acknowledges that physicians can halt or discontinue clinically unsuccessful, unacceptable, or undesirable medication. The code of ethics acknowledges the ethical problem that healthcare practitioners must resolve while deciding whether to continue or stop providing care.
Deontological thought is more preoccupied with an action’s fundamental morality than its effects. The deontological viewpoint in this situation might imply that medical personnel are responsible for stopping providing care when it is deemed futile (Kelly, 2019). This obligation stems from the beneficence principle, which calls for clinicians to behave in the patients’ best interests.
Physicians are working in the best interests of their patients by stopping useless care to spare them from more needless pain (Kelly, 2019). Medical personnel also have a responsibility to distribute resources in a just and fair manner. If resources are being utilized for unnecessary treatment, withdrawing pointless care is, in this sense, also a responsibility of justice.
Thinking based on virtue ethics involves the personality of the person carrying out the activity. In this situation, the virtue-ethics approach would contend that healthcare practitioners should be able to refuse treatment if doing so is consistent with their ethical characteristics (Humbyrd, 2019). These attributes consist of bravery, knowledge, and empathy.
Healthcare providers must be compassionate and act in the customers’ best interests, which may entail stopping unnecessary treatment. Physicians must have the wisdom to know when providing care is pointless and when it is no longer in the patient’s best interests (De Panfilis et al., 2019). Making morally tough decisions, such as stopping care, calls for courage on the part of clinicians.
The ethics-of-care philosophy focuses on the interaction between a client and the medical practitioner. In this situation, the ethics-of-care perspective could advise medical providers to speak with their patients before deciding whether to stop providing care. The medical provider should handle the scenario with good intentions, trying to do what is best for the person while also considering their preferences and morals (Emmerich et al., 2020). There should be enough discussion with the patient to determine what is ethically best in an individual’s condition. Nevertheless, there is a chance that these principles will clash with more fundamental moral principles like the obligation to act morally.
Natural law corresponds with the moral standards people should uphold when functioning morally and ethically in all circumstances. In this situation, the natural law viewpoint might contend that healthcare providers hold the responsibility for discontinuing treatment when it no longer favors the patient. This obligation is based on the moral obligation to protect life, a fundamental philosophical rule (Huang et al., 2020). The idea of beneficence, which calls for healthcare workers to act in their clients’ best interests, must be reconciled with safeguarding life. Eliminating care might be an ethically preferable course of action if therapy is not in the patient’s best interest to continue.
Conclusion
In conclusion, deciding whether medical experts should be allowed to judge when treatment is pointless and stop providing it is a complex ethical question. Considering the concepts of justice, beneficence, non-maleficence, and autonomy is necessary. Healthcare providers must balance respecting patient autonomy with determining if the patient’s continuing treatment is in their best interests and whether non-maleficence can be upheld. Justice must also be considered because each patient must receive fair treatment.
The conversation also has to include other ethical ideas like human dignity, honesty, standards of ethics, and industry standards of behavior. The paper’s moral position is that healthcare providers should be permitted to judge when providing care is pointless and stop providing it after considering all of these criteria. Nevertheless, the individual and their relatives must be involved in this decision-making process, and every effort must be made to comply with the bioethical norms.
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