Health care professionals’ encounters face various ethical dilemmas in their professional career that can range from patient advocacy to whether reporting an inappropriate action of a co-worker. Nurses are often faced with ethical decision makings. Hence nurses or any health care professionals must be able to understand how to make good decisions by applying ethical principles. To best navigate the challenges, health care workers need to follow four fundamental of ethics that are autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice.
Overview of the case study
In the case study” Incident 10: To vaccinate or not” (Capella, 2022) analyzes the decision that the Smith family taking for their five-day old newborn, Ana, who was born in the community hospital without any complications. Jenna and Chris Smith bonded well with their newborn during her first few days. During the initial pediatric appointment with Dr. Kerr, both parents, who are college educated, expressed their desire of raising Ana as naturally as possible by doing exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, preparing baby food only with organic foods and not allowing Ana to be vaccinated. They told Dr. Kerr that they have done their research by doing internet research and online mommy blogs. They decided that the risk outweighed the benefits.
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Dr. Kerr listens to their concerns and then gives them her professional opinion. She respects the beliefs of Jenna and Chris Smith and explained to them about the importance of vaccination and discussed about the myths that parents brought up about vaccines causing autism. Dr. Kerr explains how vaccines saved lives and widely responsible for decreasing child mortality by providing data such as decrease incidence of influenza and measles outbreak. Dr. Kerr provided information on safety of vaccination and explained about the vaccine safety portal, a program that runs by the Food and Drug administration and Centers for Disease control and prevention, which can be accessible to the public readily. This portal allows transparency and allow public and health care professionals to report any adverse effects of vaccine. Lastly, Dr. Kerr discussed the herd community and how it benefits.
The Smiths listened to Dr. Kerr’s explanation, but they still expressed their desire to raise Ana as natural as possible, which includes no vaccination. Dr. Kerr is unsure what to do at the end of the appointment.
Analysis of Ethical Principles
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In this case study, ethical dilemma arises when Ana’s parents decide not to vaccinate her due to the potential risk outweighing the benefits. Dr. Kerr’s beliefs are different from Ana’s parents, Jenna and Chris. As a health care professional, Dr. Kerr is challenged by the decision of Ana’s parents since Dr. Kerr believes that it’s her obligation to immunize children in order to prevent any preventable disease.
Dr. Kerr has to explain the benefits and risks to parents who seem to continue with the desire of raising Ana naturally. In the peer review article, “The influence of political ideology and Trust on willingness to vaccinate (Baumgaertner, et. al 2018), people are influenced by religion, culture, government and the amount of information that accessible. Consequently, many parents give greater weight to the risks of vaccines than the benefits.
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