Healthcare practitioners operate under the Hippocratic Oath as well as the various ethical codes of conduct. The nature of the medical field is that it remains highly sensitive, considering that it is associated with the lives of people. Mistakes, within this context, therefore, are characterized by major physical disabilities or in serious cases, the loss of lives. In this context, therefore, integrity and accountability are vital in ensuring that patients are safeguarded from malpractices that often arise within the medical care field. Surgical procedures are part and parcel of clinical practices, notably, however, is the fact that they confer a degree of inconsistency considering that they come with diverse risks and dynamics. Every year, millions of people are often subjected to life-changing surgeries.
Many have since been saved by various surgical procedures they undergo; however, for a significant proportion of this group, surgical operations are conducted unnecessarily resulting in unintended pain, suffering and loss of resources. According to Tayade and Dalvi (2016), up to 30% of the surgeries conducted annually are unwarranted and in most cases, catastrophic. Such is the case with Arkansas Children’s Hospital scenario in which a surgical operation was conducted on the wrong side of the brain. The procedure left the 15-year old boy with psychosis and severe brain damage. Above and beyond this violation, the hospital would go on to hide this error for more than a year before the parents were made aware of the fact. By looking at this scenario, it becomes clear that ethical codes were violated in the case of the lack of due diligence in the procedure and well as in the attempt to hide the information.
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Judgment error stands out conspicuously in that prior to the initiation of the surgery, the team in charge failed to conduct appropriate consultations that ultimately resulted in the wrong operation. In essence, therefore, the operating team violated the ethical and moral codes of conduct (Boodman, 2011). Form an ethical point of view; it is clear that the hospital failed to address the needs of the patient as stipulated in the code of conduct guiding the surgical field of medicine. Surgeons are expected to remain competitive throughout the course of their service through life-long learning as well as through abiding by the standards of practice. In failing to conduct the appropriate surgery, the team depicted incompetence, tantamount to the violation of operational codes of conduct (Krizek, 2000). Another moral violation arises in the absence of integrity among the surgeons as well as within the hospital. Integrity denotes the ability to adhere to existing moral and ethical codes of conduct. Additionally, it possible that the hospital might have been driven by the bottom line rather than the interest of the patient.
The haste involved in moving on with the surgery indicates a predisposition to the financial gain rather than patient welfare. In medical practice, this amounts to the commitment to existing medical codes of practices amidst the conflicting interests. Faced with the reality of judgmental error in the surgical procedure, the Arkansas Children’s Hospital deemed it fit to hide the information from the parents for over a year. This depicts a sense of dishonesty and untruthfulness on the part of the hospital. In other words, in light of impending litigation, the hospital chose to remain silent about the matter rather than coming clean to the parents (Pozgar, 2019). This would have allowed for immediate compensation and possible remediation measures to alleviate the problem. In light of this view, criminal charges are highly plausible on the part of the surgeons and the head of the hospital in that their more resulted in irreparable harm to the patient.
References
Boodman, S. G. (2011). The pain of wrong site surgery. Washington Post June , 20 .
Krizek, T. J. (2000). Surgical error: ethical issues of adverse events. Archives of Surgery , 135 (11), 1359-1366.
Pozgar, G. D. (2019). Legal and ethical issues for health professionals . Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Tayade, M. C., & Dalvi, S. D. (2016). Fundamental Ethical Issues in Unnecessary Surgical Procedures. Journal of clinical and diagnostic research: JCDR , 10 (4), JE01.
