Ethical and Legal Issues in Healthcare

AIU Online – HLTH320
Individual Project Unit 1

SCENERIO
I am a paramedic arriving at an emergency scene. A group of scouts have entered a cave that is now filling with water. They were led into the cave by a rather large scoutmaster. Unfortunately, while leading them out of the cave, the scoutmaster somehow managed to get stuck in a narrow opening with only his head and shoulders protruding out. With his upper torso stuck outside the cave, it appears the scoutmaster will survive, but all the boys below will drown if they cannot escape.
After I have checked all possible escape routes and have attempted to extricate the scoutmaster, it becomes clear that the …show more content…

In this reasoning, a person would act in a justly and virtuous manner and creating a decision where everyone is treated equally and no one would be more important than the other.
All 3 methods are going to ultimately end with the same conclusion only because it is the scout leader who is responsible for each of the lives of the troop members in which he lead into that situation. Now being that the scout leader has put his own life as well as a group of harmless children’s lives in danger only shows lack of responsibility and virtue by not getting the scouts out first before himself. If the leader had chosen to do so, all the children would have been outside of the cave and his life could have been saved as well.
In conclusion, with every difficult situation there’s no real absolute answer as to what is right or what is wrong. Each problem has a solution and the paramedics are the examiners of the situations first hand due to the fact that we are the first on the scene. When applying different standards to healthcare practice, different conclusions may be achieved. It is important to understand all parties’ view points, to clarify the ethical issues, and to compromise in resolving the dilemma (Fremgen, 2003). On the other hand, paramedics aren’t trained to dismember or even sacrifice another human being in any situation. This would be theoretically not logical to ask of anyone, but someone has to make a difficult call in this scenario.