Topics for Session 9

Ethical Applications in Professional Practice

Below are several case studies for you to think about and respond to on the bulletin board. Once you have gathered your thoughts, please post your responses on the bulletin board prior to our on-line sessions scheduled for Thursday, March 19, 1998 from 4-6 PM. During that time you can react to other students' responses.

Case Study #1 "The Liver Transplant"
You have been chosen to serve on a hospital committee to decide which of 5 applicants will receive a liver transplant. Your hospital is the only one in the world where this operation can be successfully performed. Because the procedure is so costly and complex, however, only one transplant can be performed each year. You must choose, therefore, only one of five applicants.

Keep in mind three important considerations:

The applicants are all suffering from a rapidly growing liver tumor. Without a liver transplant all will die within a year.
No one can share a liver with anyone else.
You are the final authority in this case, you cannot delegate the decision to anyone else.

The five applicants are:

White 70 year-old Swiss businessman (manufactures watches). Family will donate $3,200,000 to research on liver disease if he is chosen to get a transplant.
Seventeen year old delinquent with a high IQ but a 3 year druge (non-addictive) history; currently unemployed.
White female physician 44 years old, widowed with 2 children; works half time in community health clinic; her other work involves research on vaccines.
Black female college scholarship student, age 21, who is carrier of sickle cell anemia.
Male musician, age 36, famous concert violinist and teacher.

Questions to consider:

Which applicant gets the liver transplant and why?
What ethical principle(s) or rule(s) did you use to make your decision?

Case Study #2 "The Student Dilemma"
You are in your final year as a student in the clinic. One morning, when your clinical supervisor is going over your workload for the day, she says of a new patient, "Mrs. Johnson refuses to be treated by students. Don't mention that you are a student, and she will never know the difference."

Consider these questions:

Identify the problem presented to you as the student.
Identify 3 options you have in reaching a decision.
Discuss the implications or consequences of these options.
State your position in this case and identify your decision.

Case Study #3 "A Case of Veracity"
A husband and wife are both in a nursing home, each living on a different floor. The husband suffers a heart attack and the wife if brought to see him. Before she reaches the room, the man dies, but to spare the woman pain, the staff allows her to think that he is still alive when she gets to the room. The room is dimly lit and the women is frail and feeble, with poor eyesight. She does not realize her husband has already died. The women is told that her husband is growing weaker and that he has been waiting for her before he died. As she leaves the room, she tells the staff that she is so glad that he waited for her so that she cuold see him alive one more time.

Consider the following:

Using the Gert and Sullivan criteria to determine whether a paternalistic lie is justified, does the above case justify the lying?
Would you have handled the situation in a similar manner or would you have chosen a different action? Why?

Class discussion/bulletin board

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