Current Controversial Healthcare Issue
Current Controversial Healthcare Issue: Patient Assisted Dying
A current controversial healthcare issue would be patient-assisted suicide (PAS). PAS, also referred to as assisted dying, refers to the undertaking of suicide assisted by a physician or another clinician (Clark, 2016). In most cases, patients who request for PAS tend to have terminal illness and staying alive only causes them more suffering. Therefore, to eliminate their challenges, they find that the best option is suicide, assisted by the physicians so that it is a painless process. The rationale behind PAS is that the patient eventually dies, and it is pointless to let them suffer to their last breath. Current Controversial Healthcare Issue
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PAS is controversial because it violates specific ethical guidelines in nursing and medicine. At the same time, PAS promotes and upholds other ethical principles, hence the controversy. For instance, PAS violates the ethical principle of non-maleficence, which means doing an act that reaches the least minimum harm. In this case, patient death is a negative health outcome, hence PAS violates the principle of non-maleficence (Morrison, 2017). However, PAS also upholds the principle of patient autonomy, where the clinician allows the patient to access their rights to make their decision regarding treatment and their end of life. Current Controversial Healthcare Issue
The discipline of management science may be efficient in shaping the development of policies to address the PAS controversy when a healthcare organization faces this dilemma. Applying principles of management science would help an organization make decisions based on ethical principles, to help them solve ethical and controversial issues that arise in nursing and medical practice (Austin, 2019). For instance, in management science, the professionals would weigh the pros and cons of PAS, weigh the ethical principles, consider the legality of the act, and help the management make decisions through enacted policies.
References
Austin, J. (2019). Contemporary Leadership Challenges. Ashland: Society Publishing.
Morrison, E. (2017). Ethics in health administration. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Peter A. Clark. (2016). Bioethics – Medical, Ethical and Legal Perspectives. BoD. Current Controversial Healthcare Issue