This section provides a model to use for assistance in making ethical decisions. It incorporates questions published in Kenneth Blanchard and Norman Vincent Peale’s book, The Power of Ethical Management.
Each question in this model should be given very careful consideration when one is faced with ethical decisions and should be answered before any action is taken, because each can have an impact on the other.
The Questions
Is the action I am taking legal?
Have my peers determined and published a standard of behavior?
How will it make me feel about myself?
An outstanding example of a situation in which a personal ethical decision must be made the issue of Lethal Injection.
Is the action I am taking legal?
Yes, it is legal. In 2006 all executions in the United States used this method, which requires a medical procedure of infusing medication directly into the veins.
Have my peers determined and published a standard of behavior?
Yes. All medical doctors in the United States sign the Hippocratic Oath, which very clearly states, “I will not give a drug that is deadly to anyone if asked, nor will I suggest the way to such a counsel.”
In addition, the codes of ethics of the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Nursing Association (ANA), and the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) also prohibit their members from participating in executions.
How will it make me feel about myself?
If a physician refuses to participate will death row prisoners suffer “cruel and inhuman” punishment because a physician is not present? If so, is it ethical for a physician to deny comfort to a dying person?
There are several other questions that must be taken into consideration when determining how an action will make a physician feel about her/himself.
How will it affect my patient?
How will it affect my peers and co-workers?
Will it establish a pattern that will be hard to break in the future?
How would I feel about someone else who took the action or made the decision?
Each unique situation raises a myriad of new questions. This model can provide guidance as the physician attempts to find her/his own answers.
