Cultural Competence and Ethics: Community Term Paper

Instead, the doctor or nurse must obey the same ethical principle in all cases. They must uphold their moral duty to save the lives of all of their patients, and dispense the highest quality care they can conceivably give under the circumstances.

However, while the Kantian ethics of duty might be useful when making individual moral decisions for healthcare practitioners, the idea of utilitarianism popularized by John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham sometimes must prevail in the system as a whole, given that health care is dispensed in a world of finite, scarce resources (Mautner, 2004). Utilitarianism stresses the utility, or usefulness of every moral action for society, not simply the individual patient. For example, although it might be optimal for the individual to receive all the possible screening tests for every conceivable medical ailment, health care insurance companies will only pay for screenings deemed to be of a great priority given the individual's age, gender, and medical and familial history,.If everyone were tested with every conceivable medical test, the system would become financially overburdened, thus some rationing must take place, and the fairest way to ration care is the principle of utilitarianism.

Bibliography

Beauchamp, T. And Childress. Principles of Biomedical Ethics. Oxford University Press,

Mautner, Thomas. "Utilitarianism." The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy. 2004. 29 Jan 2008. http://www.utilitarianism.com/utilitarian.htm

Minkler, M. & Nina Wallerstein. Community-Based Participatory Research for Health

Josey-Bass, San Francisco, CA 2003

Vlatch, Michael "Kantian Ethics." Theological Ethics. 20 Nov 2004. 29 Jan 2008. http://www.theologicalstudies.citymax.com/articles/article/1527417/17142.htm.....