The Role Of Respect For Autonomy In Nursing

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The mental capacity of the patient should be considered in this case. The patient is under a huge amount of stress and pain which will most likely affect his mental capacity. Pain and trauma is can change a person’s viewpoint on the situation and in turn change their decision about the treatment that they want to receive.
Religion has and always will play a big part in medicine. Many patients refuse treatment because it goes against their beliefs and later they die to the disease. Religious devotion should be dismissed at when a patient is in a life-threatening situation. (BBC, Ethics) Life is considered more important than religion and should be valued more.

Principles of Biomedical Ethics
Respect for Autonomy: Autonomy in medicine is defined …show more content…

Beneficent actions can be taken to help prevent or remove harms or to simply improve the situation of others. Physicians are expected to refrain from causing harm, but they also have an obligation to help their patient. Physicians are not necessarily expected to live up to this broad definition of beneficence. However, the goal of medicine is to promote the welfare of patients, and physicians possess skills and knowledge that enable them to assist others. Due to the nature of the relationship between physicians and patients, doctors do have an obligation to 1) prevent and remove harms, and 2) weigh and balance possible benefits against possible risks of an action. Beneficence can also include protecting and defending the rights of others, rescuing persons who are in danger, and helping individuals with disabilities. An example of this would be providing vaccinations for the public, because this is done for the benefit of others and has more benefits than …show more content…

Physicians must not provide ineffective treatments to patients as these offer risk with no possibility of benefit and in turn have a chance of harming patients. Also, physicians must not do anything that would purposely harm patients without the action being balanced by proportional benefit. Because many medications, procedures, and interventions cause harm in addition to benefit, the principle of non-maleficence provides little concrete guidance in the care of patients.

Justice: Justice in health care is usually defined as a form of fairness (Medical Ethics). It is generally held that persons who are equals should qualify for equal treatment. This means that everyone who is equal needs to have equal access to the same treatment and medicine and no one is valued over anybody. An example of this would be if Bob and Jill both worked equally and they both contracted a disease. They both should get the same access to the same treatment because they are both equal.

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