Reflective journal 10 patient centered ethical

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL 10
patient centered ethical protocol. Moral courage is hence pertinent if nurses and
physicians are to adhere to the correct and right guidelines when medication errors
transpire. Such moral courage can be boosted by having healthcare facilities adhere to
laid out protocols and procedures of medical errors that transpire in practice and availing
emotional support to clinicians and physicians who commit such errors in their effort to
administer medication or in attempts to save patient lives.
I further learned that nurses and physicians are mandated to disclose medication
errors based on the AMA code of Medical Ethics, the American College of Physician’s
Ethics Manual, the Consequentialist Theory and the Deontological Theory or
Principalism . As Kim, Myung, Eo & Chang (2017) posits, the AMA code of Medical
Ethics stipulates that when a patient perceives or encounters positive health based
intricacies that may have accrued from the clinician or physicians judgement or actions,
the healthcare provider is ethically obligated to inform the client of all the potential facts
to facilitate comprehension of the occurrence so that the client can initiate an informed
choice in respect to the future medical attention or care. According to the American
College of Physicians protocols, doctors have a role of disclosing to their clients details
regarding mishaps of judgement or procedures inflicted during care if such data is in
alignment with the clients well-being. Based on the consequential theory, any behavior or
action that seeks to maximize on the overall goodness is highly reinforced. Such
reinforcement demands the specification of harms inflicted to any specified moral group
such as the clients, clinicians and the physicians involved. Lastly, the theory of
Principalism holds that some patient rights may not be subject to violation even if it
would lead to the overall good. The principles involved in this proponent entails the

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL 11
patients right to autonomy (which reinforces their freedom to select personal choices of
interventions and to give informed consent in any undertaking in healthcare) and the
principle of non-maleficence which reinforces the responsibility of not inducing harm to
others as stipulated by the Primum non nocere maxim.
There are certain limitations that restrict the disclosure of medical mishaps.
Ahmed, Saada, Jones & Al-Hamid (2019) opine that high expectations that label the
medical profession as “infallible” is one key barrier to error disclosure. Physicians and
nurses further feel a sense of fear of losing their status and reputation, high chances of
having limited professional progress, fear of losing authority as a medical practitioner
and fear of being sued in negligence based litigation. Ahmed et al. (2019) opines that
physicians may choose not to disclose for fear of losing a potential future prospective
client or in fear that such disclosure may result in patient pain, suffering, loss of trust and
guilt. Guillod (2014) posits that the solution to medication errors is to reinforce individual