Ethical dilemma Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Ethical dilemma - Essay Example This is an ethical problem because the patient comes from an Orthodox Jewish family. This family’s denial of a pig’s xenograft is well understood since Orthodox Jews consider pigs unclean. It is impossible to solicit the patient’s wish is untenable since he is one year shy of the legal age, on the one hand. On the other hand, to listen to the parents’ adamant stand may prove to be catastrophic to the patient due to absence of synthetic ileums and the essence of time. The ileum of the pig is the only available option and transferring the patient to another state for treatment is prolonging the patient’s predicament and endangering his health. This is especially because the gangrene may spread to the rest of the patient’s digestive system. This is not necessarily an ethical dilemma. The patient’s parents can be called to the hospital and sat down for consultation and persuasion. In the event that the parents adamantly stick to their religious compunctions, the hospital will easily release the patient out of its custody, so that his parents can seek for a better alternative in another hospital. It is not up to the hospital to decide for the patient or the patient’s family on what is good for him after all. Again, carrying out surgical intervention on the client will not necessarily be going against the power of attorney’s decision. According to Karadag and Hakan, the principles of modern bioethics are non-maleficence, beneficence, justice and respect to autonomy. However, there are situations when upholding these principles becomes subject to ethical dilemma. A case in point herein is a treatable mentally unsound patient, Mark who has had a bout of testicular torsion. Doctors have unsuccessfully tried to manually rotate the testis back to its position, thereby prompting the need for surgical intervention (Karadag & Hakan, 8-9). In the case above, there is an ethical dilemma since respect to autonomy