Legal and Ethical Issues for Health Professionals, 6th Edition – E-Book – Original PDF

Authors: George D. Pozgar
Publication: Jones & Bartlett Learning; 6th edition (April 14, 2023)
Year: 2023
ISBN: 9781284261714, 9781284261738 , 9781284290332, 1284290336
Format: Original PDF
Language: English

How far you go in life depends on your being tender
with the young, compassionate with the aged, sym-
pathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak
and strong. Because someday in life you will have
been all of these.
—George Washington Carver
Legal and Ethical Issues for Health Professionals, Sixth
Edition, has been designed to assist the reader in a
more comfortable transition from the didactics of the
classroom to the practical application in the work-
place. The sixth edition provides the reader with a
clearer understanding of how the law and ethics are
intertwined as they relate to healthcare dilemmas. The
practical application of ethics in the healthcare set-
ting is accomplished by interspersing the thoughts of
great minds through Quotes; current events in health
care through News Clippings; patient, personal, pro-
vider, and organizational experiences through Reality
Checks; and legal rulings and summaries through
legal Case Studies. The book concludes with a closet
drama that illustrates the real world of human behav-
ior and ties together its contents in one case.
The reader will learn how to evaluate and distin-
guish between the rightness and wrongness of alterna-
tive courses of action when faced with complex ethical
dilemmas. Ethics in the healthcare setting focuses on
doing the right thing for both patients and caregivers.
When people consider matters of ethics, they often
involve matters of freedom in regard to one’s personal
choices, judgments about human character, and obli-
gations to others.
This book, as with the previous five editions,
starts with the premise that to act in an ethical
manner means to engage in conduct according to
accepted principles of right and wrong. The author’s
objective is to provide the reader with the back-
ground knowledge necessary to understand that
ethical behavior begins with understanding that we
have alternatives and choices to make about how we
treat ourselves and how we treat others. To make
good decisions, we must first understand that they
will be only as good as our knowledge of what is
“right” and what is “wrong.”
A study titled “Does Ethics Education Influence
the Moral Action of Practicing Nurses and Social
Workers?,” published in the American Journal of
Bioethics in July 2008, showed that “ethics education
has a significant positive influence on moral confi-
dence, moral action, and use of ethics resources.”i
This sixth edition is not an indictment of any profes-
sion or organization. It does, however, illustrate how
a minority of people can often cast a dark shadow on
all the good that is done by so many for so many. It is
about learning how the system can fail and how we can
so easily fix it simply through good people doing good
things. The book is a call to arms to do good things, to
stand out from the crowd, because acts of caring, com-
passion, and kindness often go unnoticed. The sixth
edition, as with previous editions, has been designed to
introduce the reader to various ethical–legal issues and
should not be considered an in-depth or comprehen-
sive review of a particular ethical–legal issue. We study
ethics because we need to know right from wrong and
maintain order in a society that would otherwise be
lawless. Ethics distinguishes good from evil. Ethics and
the law are inseparable, for it is ethics that describes our
values and morality. An unethical person helps create
a world of fear, distrust, and tyranny. It is the law that
describes our commonly accepted principles of good
behavior and provides punishment for those who fail
to adhere to the laws of the land.
Cases containing a multitude of legal and ethi-
cal issues are included throughout the book.

The reader will be asked a series of questions after each
case, requiring legal and ethical logic to answer them.
Caregivers who have a clear grasp of the ethical and
legal concepts discussed in this book will be better pre-
pared to make healthcare decisions that are ethically
sound and legally correct. Presented here is a sampling
of the wide range of questions that can be asked and
discussed when analyzing an ethical dilemma.
1. What are the relevant ethical and legal issues in
the case?
2. What could have been done to bring more clarity
to the ethical dilemma?
3. How should the legal issues of the case be
addressed?

4. How might one’s professional code of ethics be
violated in the case?
5. How might the principles of patient autonomy,
beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice affect
the decision-making process when faced with an
ethical dilemma with legal implications?
6. What are the issues that could affect those
involved in the resolution of an ethical dilemma
(e.g., family members, physicians, or other care-
givers, including nurses, chaplains, and/or ethics
committee members)?
7. If you were friendly with the patient, would it
affect your ability to give an objective opinion?
8. How can the moral values, religious beliefs, edu-
cation, and life experiences of both caregivers and
patients complicate the resolution of healthcare
dilemmas?
9. How can financial concerns affect the decision-
making process?
10. How can corporate culture affect the decision-
making process?
One of the most difficult things to come to terms with
in the decision-making process is to know when the
endless loop of asking questions must end and a deci-
sion must be made.
Each life is like a novel. Filled with moments of happi-
ness, sadness, crisis, defeat, and triumph. When the last
page has been written, will you be happy or saddened by
what you read?