Question

Given the biomedical ethical mandate to do good and not to harm, how do clinicians measure the good they’ve done or whether they’ve done good at all? Is such measurement a responsibility of the clinician? Why or why not?

Answer 1

Nonmaleficence means doing no harm. I think care Providers must ask themselves whether their actions may harm the patient either by omission or commission. The guiding principle of primum non nocere, “First of all, do no harm,” . Actions or practices of a healthcare provider are “right” as long as they are in the interest of the patient and avoid negative consequences.

Harm by an act of omission means that some action could have been done to avoid harm but wasn’t done. Omission would be failing to raise the side rails on the patient’s hospital bed, upon which the patient fell out and was injured. An act of Commission is something actually done that resulted in harm. An example of an act of commission would be delivering a medication in the wrong dose or to the wrong patient.

Case managers can be accused of maleficence by omission if they failed to coordinate a patient’s care correctly—for example, discharging a patient to an inappropriate level of care or leaving a patient in a dangerous living situation. A key role for the case manager is to be an advocate for the patient and neglecting this role could be maleficent. An unethical act of commission could be breaking confidentiality by releasing information that becomes harmful to the patient.

the principle of nonmaleficence conflicting with the principle of autonomy as the healthcare providers or case managers desire to be beneficent or, at the least, cause no harm. The active choice to hasten death versus the seemingly passive choice of allowing death to occur requires that we provide patients with all the information necessary to make an informed choice about courses of action available to them

Yes , definitely the clinician has the responsibility to check themselves whether they are doing good with their patients or not. Or to check also their colleagues that no one should harm the patient.many healthcare hide their mistaken and won't able to accept them in front of patient but that truly the killing humon among own self. The person get down in his own eyes so we should protect the right s of the patient. Do not harm practice with the patient.