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CH 1 2 3 4-5-Professional Ethics
CH 1 2 3 4-5-Professional Ethics
MeLS 2083
Course Title:
Professional Ethics
08/24/21 by Derso W 3
Course Objectives, cont’d
• Maintain the highest standard of care and
professional ethics by identifying the rights and
obligations of medical laboratory professionals
• Support the interests and needs of clients and their
families to exercise their rights to make informed
decisions regarding their care
• Recognize and maintain code of ethics for medical
laboratory professionals
• Exercise good laboratory practice
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Course Outline:
1.0. Introduction
1.1. Definition of terms
1.2. Classification of ethics
1.3. Principles of ethics
2.0. Interpersonal relationships
3.0. Good Laboratory Practices (GLPs)
4.0 Principles of confidentiality and privacy responsibility
5.0 Responsibility and accountability to the profession
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Course Outline, cont’d
6.0. Rights and obligations of medical laboratory
professionals
7.0 Patient’s bill of rights
8.0 Introduction to compassionate care
9.0 Concepts of respectful and dignified care
10.0 Compassionate leadership
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1.0. Introduction
Outline
1.1. Definition of terms
1.2. Classification of ethics
1.3. Principles of ethics
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Objectives
At the end of this session students will be able to:
• Define ethics, Profession (professional, professionalism),
Behavior, Moral, Legal practice, Common law, Civil law,
Court, Precedent,
• Discuss Classification of ethics
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Why study ethics?
• When students enter the professional world, you will be
expected to follow an explicit or implicit ethical code.
• To responsibly confront moral issues raised by medical
laboratory activities
• How to deal with ethical dilemmas in their professional
lives?
• To achieve moral autonomy
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1.1. Definitions
1.1.1. Definition of ethics
– derived from the Greek word ethos, meaning “custom” or
“character”
– Is concerned with what is right or wrong, good or bad
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Definitions continued
1. 1.2. Definition of profession:
– Occupation, practice, or vocation requiring mastery of
a complex set of knowledge and skills through formal
education and/or practical experience.
• All professions are occupations, but not all
occupations are professions
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• Criteria to distinguish a profession from other
occupations.
– Knowledge
– Professional Organization
– Freedom of Practice
-Professionalism:
• The actions of the members of a profession based on the
accepted code of conduct
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Definitions cont’d
– Professional ethics
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Definitions cont’d
Code of Conduct:
•A professional code of ethics is guidelines that clearly
identifies professional obligations and responsibilities with
reference to the rights of clients.
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Definitions cont’d
1.1.3. Definition of Behavior:- The way somebody behaves
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Definitions: Ethics vs Moral
• Very close relationship between ethics and morality to the
extent that sometimes people confuse ethics for morality and
use the two terms interchangeably.
• The basic difference is that morality is concerned with the
right and wrong of human actions;
• whereas ethics provides the basic principles for justifying and
determining the rightness or wrongness of the human actions.
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Ethics vs Moral
• Where an action is said to be right or wrong in
morality, ethics steps in, using its ethical principles
(ethical theories) to prove or justify the wrongness or
goodness of that action.
• Ethics is the philosophical thinking or systematic study
about morality, moral problems and moral judgments.
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Definitions cont’d
1.1.5. Definition of Legal practice:
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1.2 Classification of Ethics
Ethics is divided into three primary areas:
Meta – ethics:
• investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean.
Normative ethics:
• takes on a more practical task, involve arriving at moral standards that
regulate right and wrong conduct.
Applied/Professional ethics:
• the study of the use of ethical values
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Applied Ethics
• Is a discipline of philosophy that attempts to apply ethical
theory to real-life situations
• There are several sub-branches of professional/applied ethics:
• Business ethics
• Journalism ethics
• Engineering ethics
• Legal ethics
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Applied Ethics cont’d
– Nursing ethics
– Pharmacy ethics
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Professional Ethics
• is the moral principle, which should guide members of
the profession in their dealings with each other and with
their patients, the patrons (clients), the state etc.
• is a collective and disciplined concern of the group
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Professional morality vs Ethics
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1.3. Principles of Ethics
• The most commonly accepted principles of medical ethics
include:
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Principles of Ethics cont’d
2. Beneficence: acting in the best interests of patients
(doing or promoting good). This principle is the basis
for all health care providers
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Principles of Ethics cont’d
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2.0
Interpersonal Relationships
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2.0. Interpersonal Relationships
outline
2.1. Interpersonal relationship with patients
2.2. Interpersonal relationship with one’s family
2.3. Interpersonal relationship with visitors
2.4. Interpersonal relationship with colleagues and other health professionals
2.5. Medical laboratory patient- relationships
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Objectives
Upon completion of this chapter the student will be able to:
• Define terms such as interpersonal, patient, client, surrogate,
informed consent and disclosure
• Describe interpersonal relationship with patients, with one’s
family, with visitors, with colleagues and other health
professionals
• Explain the importance of medical laboratory patient-
relationships.
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2.1. Interpersonal r/ships with patients
• Medical Laboratory professionals are accountable for the
quality and integrity of the laboratory services they provide
• The medical laboratory technologist should:
– recognize the rights of patients to expect that you will not pass
on any personal and confidential information you acquire in
the course of your professional duties, unless they agree to
disclosure or the law demands
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Interpersonal relationships with
patients, cont’d
• The medical laboratory technologist should:
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2.2. Interpersonal r/ships with family
• Group activity
3. Please give examples of behaviors that were positive and also those
examples that were negative
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2.3. Interpersonal relationship with
visitors
The medical laboratory technologist should:
• Explain to family and visitors that your first duty is to honor the trust
and confidentiality of your patients
• Be polite and respectful of family and visitors and offer to answer
questions for directions; questions about the patient’s condition
should be directed to the patient (or clinician with patient approval)
• Respect family and visitor dignity
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2.4. Interpersonal relationship with
colleagues and other health professionals
The medical laboratory technologist should:
• Not make a patient doubt a colleagues’ knowledge or skills by
making comments about them that cannot be fully justified
• Actively strive to establish cooperative and respectful
working relationships with other health care professionals
with the primary objective of ensuring a high standard of
care for the patients they serve.
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The medical laboratory technologist should:
• Not discriminate against colleagues, including professionals
applying for posts
– Because of race, culture, ethnicity, social status, lifestyle,
perceived economic worth, age, gender, disability, communicable
disease status, sexual orientation, religious or spiritual beliefs, or
– Confidentiality
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Communication and consent
• The patient has the right to self- determination, to make free
decisions regarding himself/herself.
• The medical laboratory professional will inform the patient of the
consequences of his/her decisions.
• A mentally competent adult patient has the right to give or withhold
consent to any diagnostic procedure or therapy.
• The patient has the right to the information necessary to make
his/her decisions.
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Communication and consent
• The patient should understand clearly the purpose of any test or
treatment, what the result would imply, and what would be the
implication of withholding consent.
• Competent patients have the right to refuse treatment, even when
the refusal will result in disability or death.
• As an ethical concern if a patient is not mentally capable to make
a decision, a surrogate decision maker needs to be part of the
discussion.
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Communication and Consent
• The surrogate decision maker is a person designated by the
patient to make medical decisions in the event the patient is
unable to.
Informed Consent:
• Definition: A patient’s willing acceptance of a medical
intervention after adequate disclosure from the health
professional of the nature of the intervention, risks, benefits and
alternative treatment options
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Informed Consent
• What constitutes informed consent?
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Confidentiality
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Confidentiality
• Patient confidentiality must be upheld
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Good Laboratory Practices (GLPs)
• Laboratory services are an integral part of disease diagnosis,
treatment, monitoring response to treatment, disease surveillance
programs and clinical research.
• Laboratory test results, therefore, should be reliable, accurate and
reproducible.
• Generation of such 'quality' results involves a step wise process of
careful planning, perfect execution and detailed checking of
results by the whole team involved.
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Good Laboratory Practices
• Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) include a set of principles
that provides a framework within which laboratory studies
are planned, performed, monitored, recorded, reported and
archived.
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GLP includes
– Infrastructure
– Specimen collection
– Requisition form
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51
– Reporting test results
– Ethical considerations
– Internal audit (identify problems and weak points in the system and
suggest remedial measures
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52
chapter 4
Principles of confidentiality and
privacy
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4.0. Principles of confidentiality and privacy
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Objectives
Upon completion of this chapter the student will be able to:
•Define terms such as ethical dilemma, moral and legal
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Ethical Dilemma
• A situations in which two or more moral obligations,
duties, rights, or ideals come into conflict
– there is no clear right or wrong answer or
– there may be more than one correct solution
• To resolve we must identify the factors, gather facts,
rank moral considerations, consider alternative
courses of actions, and arrive at a judgment.
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How to resolve Dilemmas?
• Some dilemmas are resolved because they are not moral
dilemmas.
• Some MORAL dilemmas can be resolved through a
creative third alternative that satisfies both moral
outcomes.
• Or, possible to sequentially act on each one.
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Ethical Dilemma Group Activity*:
• The hijacked plane with 200 people is approaching a building
with 50,000 people
• Vote! Will you shoot down the plane?
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Ethical / Moral Theories
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4.1.1 Moral Theory
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Ethical theory
1. Deontological
2. Teleological and
3. Virtue ethics
• The first two are considered deontic or action-based
theories of morality because they focus entirely upon the
actions which a person performs.
• The third doesn't judge actions as right or wrong but rather
the character of the person doing the actions.
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1. Deontology theory
• Deontology is a duty-based moral theory.
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Kantianism
• Decide if an act is right or wrong without looking at
consequences.
• Rules should comply with the categorical imperative.
• Duties:
• “Always tell the truth”
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2. Teleological theory
• Is when actions are judged morally right based upon their
consequences.
• Thus, in order to make correct moral choices, we have to
have some understanding of what will result from our
choices.
• One sub class of teleological moral theory is
Consequentialism
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Consequentialism
• Right and wrong is determined by the overall goodness
(utility) of the consequences of action.
• An act is right only if it tends to result in the greatest net
good
• All acts are potentially permissible; depends on
consequences
• Difficult to determine which consequences, what
probability, what weight?
• May
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Derso Wgreater good 65
Utilitarianism:
• One forms of Consequentialist theories
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4.1.2 Ethics and Law
Description of Ethics and Law:
• Medical ethics and the law are not the same, but often
help define each other
• Breach of ethical obligation may not necessarily
mean breach of law
• Breach of ethical obligation may be used to prove
medical malpractice
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Cont…
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Ethics vs Law
• Law – the authority is external
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4.1.3 Ethics and Medical Laboratory
Science
• Health professional’s ethics emanated and expressed
through:
– Law
– Institutional policies
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Chapter 5
5.1. introduction
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5.1. introduction
The medical laboratory technologist should:
• uphold and maintain the dignity and respect of medical
laboratory profession
• contribute to the advancement of the profession by
• improving the body of knowledge,
75
Cont…..
• Strive to maintain a reputation of honesty, integrity and
reliability.
• Promote the image and status of your profession by
maintaining high standards in your professional practice and
through active support of your professional bodies.
• Take responsibility for your professional acts
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5.3. Professional responsibility
- is the area of practice that encompasses the duties/ethics
of medical laboratory professionals to:
Act in a professional manner
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Cont…
Have a responsibility to never disclose confidential
patient or co-worker information
Are under a strict duty of confidentiality to keep
information received in the course of their work
secret.
Have the ethical responsibility to make the best
decision in every situation
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References for Chapters 1-5
• Ethiopian Medical Laboratory Association (Ethiopia Medical
Laboratory Association) Code of Ethics for Medical Laboratory
Technologists Practicing in Ethiopia, 2008
• Medical Ethics Manual, World Medical Association, 2005
• James M. Gripando. Nursing Perspectives and Issues; Delmar
publishers INC 3rd edition
• International Federation of Biomedical Laboratory Science
(IFBLS) code of ethics IFBLS general assembly of delegates,
1992
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Any question????
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