Wednesday, October 22, 2008

University of Kentucky







During one of my classes, Health Care Needs of the Elderly, we had a guest speaker who was the CEO of Winter Park Memorial Hospital. He told us the story of a physician in Kentucky who branded "UK" for his alma mater (University of Kentucky) onto a patient. This seemed to be very unethical and inappropriate so I wanted to do more research on the topic. I found an article going into more detail about that the guest speaker told us. A woman went to the physician to have a hysterectomy and allowed the physician to videotape the surgery in 2002. The physician branded "UK" on the uterus of the patient during her surgical procedure. In the article I read, there was a picture of the brand which was very disturbing (picture is listed above). It is not understandable why a physician would act in this manner. He was aware that the procedure was being videotaped but continued to brand the patient. It is not understood if he felt that this would be amusing to the patient or if the patient would disregard this immature behavior.


When patients put their lives into the hands of a caregiver they expect to receive the best of their care and the physician who degraded his patient in this manner should have been heavily reprimanded. This was a violation of patient rights. Normative ethics relates to this story because this type of ethics is designed to determine what moral standards should be followed so that human behavior and conduct may be morally right. The physician also did not demonstrate what most would consider good moral judgment in this case. Branding a patient does not appear to be good moral judgment on the physician's behalf. This leads to a violation of Code of Medical Ethics. This code states that " A physician shall be dedicated to providing competent medical care with compassion and respect for human dignity and rights." The patient's human dignity was not treated with respect and there is no way to justify the behavior of this physician. Another Code of Medical Ethics that was violated was maintaining standards of professionalism and respecting the rights of the patient.
It is saddening that events such as this one occur in health care. Having a procedure that the patient had, was a very serious procedure and having the physician violate her rights was very depressing. If I am placing my care into the hands of a caregiver I was superior service and with a hysterectomy, this could also be a very difficult procedure for some women. Hopefully the patient feel as if justice has been served and the physician has learned his lesson in ethics.

No comments: