Discussion: Caregiver’s right to privacy and confidentiality
Discuss the potential controversy when considering a patient’s right to know whether a caregiver has AIDS, and the caregiver’s right to privacy and confidentiality. Consider the following: A physician cut his hand with a scalpel while he was Helping another physician. Because of the uncertainty that blood had been transferred from the physician’s hand wound to the patient through an open surgical incision, he agreed to have a blood test for HIV. His blood tested positive for HIV and he withdrew himself from participation in further surgical procedures. Discuss the ethical and legal issues. While helping out another doctor, a doctor cut his hand with a scalpel. Because he wasn’t sure if blood from the doctor’s hand wound had gotten into the patient’s body through an open surgical cut, he agreed to a blood test for HIV. His blood was tested and found to have HIV, so he decided not to go through with any more surgeries. Talk about the moral and legal problems.
Discussion Prompt #2
The following questions refer to your experience in this week’s exercise, Conducting Moral and Ethical Dialog in Clinical Practice. Describe your overall experience with the moral and ethical dialog exercise, and address at least three (3) of the following:
Did you find any of the scenarios more difficult to deal with than others?
Did you feel any internal conflict with any of the scenarios?
How did your personal and professional background impact how you decided to interact with the patient?
Do you feel the responses the patient gave to the practitioner’s response were reasonable or typical?
Were you taken aback by any of the patient reactions?
How might this activity contribute to your role as a nurse advocate in a moral and ethical practice?
Did you utilize an ethical decision making model to explore a systematic way to evaluate any of these ethical dilemmas? If so, describe the effectiveness
