Nursing and Ethical Choices
What are the utilitarian and Kantian justifications for Advance Directives?
The health care proxy and the living will are two ways in which a patient can express advance directives relating to health care and/or end of life treatment should that person become incapacitated. The utilitarian justification for advance directives is that the end justifies the means, or in other words the greatest good for the greatest number of people. If an advanced directive is given, it covers all the people involved and lets the patient's wishes be known ahead of time in case there comes a moment when the patient can speak for him or herself. The doctors and care givers will be obliged to accept this as the greatest good, because it relieves them of any duty to give care (if the directive has in place that it should be refused) and vice-versa. The Kantian justification for advanced directives is that it respects the autonomous position, that is, the individual right to refuse treatment (should that be the case). The individual makes it known ahead of time in the living will, for example, and this is respected as Kantian philosophy upholds autonomy as a basic right.
2. Why do clinicians still struggle to practice full disclosure of medical error? Explain briefly the key elements of disclosure.
Disclosure involves stating everything that went wrong with a medical error to the patient,...
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