CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF HEALTH AND ALLIED SCIENCE

WEILL BUGANDO SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

DEPARTMENT: Ethics and Professionalism

COURSE NAME: Bachelor of science in Nursing (BSN)

MODULE CODE:

MODULE NAME: Medical ethics

YEAR OF STUDY: Third year

SEMESTER: Five

REG NUMBER: CUHAS/BSN/5000995/T/20

NAME: MWANAHAMIS H HAJI

NATURE OF ASSIGNMENT: INDIVIDUAL

NUMBER OF ASSIGNMENT: 1

DATE OF SUBMISSION: 25 January 2023

ETHICS CASE STUDY

 Social history of patient

NAME: Adventina Mazima

Sex: Female

Status: Married

Age:60

File no: 3973

Tribe:Sukuma

Phone no: 0718744683

Address: Buswelu Mwanza

 Social and family history

The patient is married and has 4 children, two are male and two are female, she is a housewife.

 Presenting symptoms

The main chief complaint of the patient was vision disorder, blurred vision, distorted vision, impaired
colour vision, seeing spots, or vision loss.

 Initial diagnosis

The patient was diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy

 Prognosis

She gets little relief after beginning an initial medications and still progress with medications.

 Treatment/ management

The treatment goal is to treat the growth of new blood vessels at the back of the eye (retina) in cases of
proliferative diabetic retinopathy, and to stabilise some cases of maculopathy. To increase patient ability
of seeing.

 Treatment options

Counseling for emotional support.

 Tight control of glucose and blood pressure, followed by intravitreal anti-VEGF and steroid injections,
focal and panretinal laser, and vitrectomy surgery.

 Who decide?

Medical team of ophthalmologist decide to do radiotherapy and provide other medication.

 Informations give to the patient

Patient relatives were informed about the condition of the patient which are impaired her vision on
right eye and give them the concent for the treatment options.

 Patient concent

Since the patient was conscious, so she was ask to get treatment of radiotherapy after being informed
about her conditions and the treatment options available, fortunately she accepted.

 Documentation

Documentation was made about treatment procedure or informed consent and written the first date of
attending the clinic which was on 19/12/2022 and the second date was on 17/1/2023.

 Major change of patient

After beginning the first radiotherapy, the patient seems to has good prognosis compared before getting
radiotherapy so there is no referral or changing of decision about treatment options provided.

 Current views, concerns and issues of relatives/patient and staff

The relatives was well satisfied with the management given to their patient as the patient’s condition
was good since she attending the clinical effectively. Doctors advise the patient’s relatives to go with
her at clinic if any changes or complications occur before the date of attendance.

 PRESENTING ETHICAL ISSUES.

Psychosocial harm: Here we prevent the patient from psychological harm like being depressed and
worried due to the disease condition. The patient being depressed and has anxiety after loosing her
right eye vision because she believe that, no treatment that will make her vision to be normal as earlier.

Patient’s privacy and confidentiality; Privacy in healthcare means your personal information concerns
your disease condition or medication that you are given are kept private. It is one of the most important
ethical issue the patient’s information to be kept private , nurses and doctors are responsible to choose
one patient relative to inform about disease condition, treatment and procedure take place to the
patient.
Informed consent; Simply means a healthcare provider educates the patient about the risks, benefits
and alternatives of a given procedure or intervention. The patient’s decision making was obeyed. Also
has right to accept or reject the option made by the doctors. Here the patient accept the options made
and starting the intervention.

 STEPS TAKEN TO RESERVE ETHICAL ENCOUNTERED ISSUES.

In psychosocial harm, here the patient was advised and giving hope so as to reduce her anxiety and
being depressed.

The patient and her relatives were educated about the risks and complications of the disease so as to
come up with right decision and lucky the patient accept the intervention and starting radiotherapy.

 ETHICAL CONSIDERATION

Beneficence; Here doctors look the benefits and risk due to the patient condition, then compared
between the risk and benefits and see that the benefits is greater than the risk so they decide to
continue with intervention.

Autonomy: Patient made decision about the treatments choices and medical professional obey the
decision made by patients according to the concerns and perspective of the patient conditions.

Informed consent: The patient received all necessary information, she understood the information and
accept to begin the intervention.

Voluntary participation: The patient/relatives of patient voluntarily accept the treatment and
understanding the intervention.

Meeting; The meeting was done by doctor and patient on the treatment progress together with further
treatment needed and also relatives was informed about treatment required and the cost of each
intervention needed to the patient.

 Lesson learned from the case

Is that, knowing the diseases profile and its management, to formulate ethical issues and knowing the
way of resolving them, also getting knowledge on how to approach the patient so that getting the right
information concerns her disease.

 RECOMMENDATIONS.

The principle of Oath should be obeyed to resolve ethical issues; This is due to the fact that the principle
focuses on respect, humanity, professionalism, confidentiality, conscience and dignity which are very
necessary in resolving ethical issues.