First Scenario of an Ethical Dilemma - Essay Example

This is an ethical problem because the patient comes from an Orthodox Jewish family. This family’s denial of a pig’s xenograft is well understood since Orthodox Jews consider pigs unclean. It is impossible to solicit the patient’s wish is untenable since he is one year shy of the legal age, on the one hand. On the other hand, listening to the parents’ adamant stand may prove to be catastrophic to the patient due to the absence of synthetic ileum and the essence of time. The ileum of the pig is the only available option and transferring the patient to another state for treatment is prolonging the patient’s predicament and endangering his health. This is especially because the gangrene may spread to the rest of the patient’s digestive system.

This is not necessarily an ethical dilemma. The patient’s parents can be called to the hospital and sat down for consultation and persuasion. If the parents adamantly stick to their religious compunctions, the hospital will easily release the patient out of its custody, so that his parents can seek a better alternative in another hospital.  It is not up to the hospital to decide for the patient or the patient’s family what is good for him after all. Again, carrying out surgical intervention on the client will not necessarily be going against the power of attorney’s decision.

According to Karadag and Hakan, the principles of modern bioethics are non-maleficence, beneficence, justice, and respect for autonomy. However, there are situations when upholding these principles becomes subject to ethical dilemmas. A case in point herein is a treatable mentally unsound patient, Mark who has had a bout of testicular torsion. Doctors have unsuccessfully tried to manually rotate the testis back to its position, thereby prompting the need for surgical intervention (Karadag & Hakan, 8-9).

In the case above, there is an ethical dilemma since respect for autonomy demands that Mark’s consent is obtained. However, Mark is mentally incapacitated so he cannot give consent, since respect to autonomy demands not consent in itself, but informed consent. Again, waiting for Mark to recover is not feasible since testicles are only recoverable when restored within six hours. Despite this ethical debacle, urgent surgical intervention is the only form of treatment that can correct Mark’s condition. Delaying the surgical intervention May hinder the recovery of Mark’s testis, reduce Mark’s chances of siring his progeny, and may also prove to be life-threatening. Even if Mark comes about, matters will not be any easier since he will be in great and unbearable pain.

The foregoing is not an ethical dilemma at all. Seeing that Mark is not mentally stable and cannot give informed consent yet he needs urgent medical intervention, Mark’s closest kin can give informed consent on his behalf. In this case, when Mark regains his mental stability, he will be made to understand why such an action was taken outside his mental consciousness.