Sample Solution
A healthcare ethical issue that is current and relevant is the use of telemedicine as a way to deliver medical care services. Telemedicine has been used with increasing frequency over recent years, and it has raised ethical questions about the safety, effectiveness, convenience, and cost of providing patient care remotely (Vuong et al., 2020). The two primary ethical principles most appropriate for resolving this issue are beneficence and nonmaleficence.
The principle of beneficence calls on healthcare providers to act in their patients’ best interest by offering treatment options which offer the greatest potential benefit while minimizing possible risks or harms (Todres & Galvin, 2010). Telehealth offers a number of benefits including wider access to care for individuals who may not have easy access to physical clinics; reduced travel time; improved continuity of care; shorter wait times for specialist appointments; improved convenience through virtual visits; decreased costs for both patients and healthcare systems (Vuong et al., 2020). Therefore, if implemented well with adequate safeguards in place telemedicine can be very beneficial from an ethical standpoint.
The second principle pertinent to this situation is nonmaleficence. This ethic requires that health professionals strive to avoid doing harm when caring for their patients (Todres & Galvin, 2010). While telemedicine holds many promises such as increased access to healthcare services there are also potential pitfalls such as misdiagnoses due lack of direct contact between provider and patient or technical issues which could lead to diagnostic errors due inadequate data collection (Vuong et al., 2020 ). Thus it is essential that any implementation strategy takes into account all potential harms caused by utilizing this form of delivering patient – centered care
Frowe suggested combatants must be identified as combatants, to avoid the presence of guerrilla warfare which can end up in a higher death count, for example, the Vietnam War. Moreover, he argued they must be part of the army, bear arms and apply to the rules of jus in bello. (Frowe (2011), Page 101-3). This suggests Frowe seeks a fair, just war between two participants avoiding non-combatant deaths, but wouldn’t this lead to higher death rate for combatants, as both sides have relatively equal chance to win since both use similar tactics? Nevertheless, arguably Frowe will argue that combatant can lawfully kill each other, showing this is just, which is also supported by Vittola, who states: ‘it is lawful to draw the sword and use it against malefactors (Begby et al (2006b), Page 309).’
In addition, Vittola expresses the extent of military tactics used, but never reaches a conclusion whether it’s lawful or not to proceed these actions, as he constantly found a middle ground, where it can be lawful to do such things but never always (Begby et al (2006b), Page 326-31). This is supported by Frowe, who measures the legitimate tactics according to proportionality and military necessity. It depends on the magnitude of how much damage done to one another, in order to judge the actions after a war. For example, one cannot simply nuke the terrorist groups throughout the middle-east, because it is not only proportional, it will damage the whole population, an unintended consequence. More importantly, the soldiers must have the right intention in what they are going to achieve, sacrificing the costs to their actions. For example: if soldiers want to execute all prisoners of war, they must do it for the right intention and for a just cause, proportional to the harm done to them. This is supported by Vittola: ‘not always lawful to execute all combatants…we must take account… scale of the injury inflicted by the enemy.’ This is further supported by Frowe approach, which is a lot more moral than Vittola’s view but implies the same agendas: ‘can’t be punished simply for fighting.’ This means one cannot simply punish another because they have been a combatant. They must be treated as humanely as possible. However, the situation is escalated if killing them can lead to peace and security, within the interests of all parties.
Overall, jus in bello suggests in wars, harm can only be used against combatants, never against the innocent. But in the end, the aim is to establish peace and security within the commonwealth. As Vittola’s conclusion: ‘the pursuit of justice for which he fights and the defence of his homeland’ is what nations should be fighting for in wars (Begby et al (2006b), Page 332). Thus, although today’s world has developed, we can see not much different from the modernist accounts on warfare and the traditionists, giving another section of the theory of the just war. Nevertheless, we can still conclude that there cannot be one definitive theory of the just war theory because of its normativity.
