MTSNAMS Saving the Lives of People & Legitimate Medical Approaches Discussion

Ethics Issue: All ethical guidelines for health care practitioners remind them to be aware that, even though sexually suggestive behavior may not have crossed the line legally, any form of sexual harassment or exploitation between medial supervisors and trainees, employers and employees, coworkers, or medical practitioners and patients is unethical. 1. You are a surgical technologist in a large hospital. Whenever you work with a certain surgeon, she tells off-color jokes to you and your coworkers and makes suggestive comments to workers of the opposite sex. One coworker tells you that he might quit his job because he is married, and the surgeon’s behavior makes him so uncomfortable that he dreads coming to work. Is the surgeon’s behavior illegal or simply in bad taste? Explain your answer. 2. Do you or your coworkers in the previous situation have grounds for a sexual harassment complaint? Explain your answer. 3. If you have determined that you do have a complaint, how would you proceed? Case Study: Health care practitioners have legal and ethical responsibilities to follow laws and procedures that protect their safety and patient safety. 1. Assume you are the medical technologist in the chapter’s opening scenario, and you observe that every urine specimen analyzed during a hectic morning has a high leukocyte count. You realize this is unusual, but you don’t want to fall behind, and you do not report the anomaly to your supervisor. Have you acted ethically? Explain your answer. Ethics Issue: Predictive genetic testing is offered to asymptomatic adults even when there is no effective treatment. Testing of young people in similar circumstances is controversial, and guidelines recommend against it. Most young people seeking genetic testing want to know (or their parents want to know) if they have a genetic predisposition to develop Huntington’s disease. 1. In your opinion, should immature young people – say under the age of 14 – be genetically tested for adult-onset diseases that have no effective treatment or cure? Explain your answer. 2. Should mature young people who express a genuine desire to know be genetically tested for Huntington’s disease or any other adult-onset disease for which there is no effective treatment? Explain your answer. Case Study: As reproductive technology advanced, headlines announcing “Couple Battles over Frozen Embryos” became more and more commonplace. For example, in the 1980s a man went to court and succeeded in preventing his ex-wife from using their frozen embryos to become pregnant. He maintained that after he and his wife had divorced, he no longer wanted to become a parent, and should not be forced to do so against his will. In 1998, a divorced woman in New Jersey won a legal battle with her ex-husband over custody of seven frozen embryos the couple had created in vitro while still married. The wife wanted to have the embryos destroyed, while the ex-husband argued his right to adopt his own embryos to be implanted in a future partner or donated to an infertile couple. 1. In your opinion, should frozen embryos be considered property to be awarded during a divorce? Why or why not? 2. Should a man who loses custody of frozen embryos in a lawsuit be responsible for child support if his ex-wife is implanted with the embryos and becomes pregnant at a later date? Explain your answer. 3. Should the husband or wife who wins custody of frozen embryos be allowed to destroy them, against the wishes of the ex-husband or ex-wife? Why or why not? …