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Ethical Issues

Ethical Issues

Nurses are essential in patient care, upholding the ethical principles of their profession and effectively navigating ethical dilemmas. Neglecting ethical issues can lead to inadequate patient care, compromised therapeutic relationships, and moral distress among healthcare workers.
Ethical Concerns in Healthcare:

Ethical Dilemmas II

Ethical Dilemmas II

Resolving an ethical dilemma in healthcare involves a systematic approach that considers every aspect of the issue, respecting both the patient's needs and values and the healthcare professional's ethical obligations. Here are potential steps to resolve an ethical dilemma:

Ethics and Bioethics

Ethics and Bioethics

Ethics is a philosophical study of moral actions. Ethics attempts to determine what is valuable for individuals and society. It examines the rational justification of moral judgments and analyzes what is morally just, fair, and right. Bioethics is a sub-discipline of applied ethics that analyzes the philosophical, social, and legal issues in life sciences and medicine. Ethical theories serve as a foundation for decision-making and represent the viewpoints from which people seek direction. They...

Ethical Dilemmas I

Ethical Dilemmas I

Ethical dilemmas in nursing are of utmost importance, as they often arise from the tension between adhering to core ethical principles and the practical realities of healthcare delivery. These dilemmas require nurses to navigate complex situations where competing ethical considerations pull them in different directions.
Let us explore some examples to understand the potentially complex moral decisions nurses face.
Take the case of caring for minors, particularly in areas related to reproductive...

Nursing Ethical Principles II

Nursing Ethical Principles II

Ethical principles are essential in guiding nurses to fulfill their responsibilities, focusing on the quality of nursing care and decision-making. These principles, including autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, and fidelity, shape the ethical framework within healthcare settings.
Consider the following scenario, which illustrates how these principles are applied in the care of Mr. John, a fifty-year-old teacher diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer.
Initially, Mr. John's cancer...

Obedience

Obedience

According to obedience research, we may harm others under the forceful pressures of an authority figure (Milgram, 1974). How about if the inappropriate orders were delivered with less force? The increasing interdependence between nurses and physicians compelled Hofling and his colleagues to explore nurses’ reactions to a potentially harmful medical request made by the perceived authority figure, the doctor (Hofling, Brotzman, Dalrymple, Graves, & Pierce, 1966). In this situation, obedience...

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Updated: Jul 7, 2026

Treatment Model for Young Patients with Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction and Resultant Infertility

Treatment Model for Young Patients with Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction and Resultant Infertility

Published on: May 30, 2025

Ethically problematic treatment decisions: a physician survey.

Samuli I Saarni¹, Piitu Parmanne, Ritva Halila

¹National Public Health Institute, Helsinki, Finland. samuli.saarni@helsinki.fi

|February 7, 2008

Summary

Young physicians face more ethical dilemmas, often feeling pressured to overtreat. Older physicians report fewer ethical issues, sometimes due to resource limitations, highlighting age-related differences in medical ethics challenges.

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Last Updated: Jul 7, 2026

Treatment Model for Young Patients with Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction and Resultant Infertility

Treatment Model for Young Patients with Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction and Resultant Infertility

Published on: May 30, 2025

Area of Science:

Medical Ethics
Physician Well-being
Healthcare Quality

Background:

Ethical problems in healthcare stem from challenging situations and individual sensitivity.
Ethically problematic treatment decisions can indicate quality issues and cause distress.
Limited understanding exists regarding physician experiences with ethical problems, their nature, and variations by demographics.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the prevalence and types of ethical problems encountered by physicians.
To examine how ethical problems vary based on physician age, gender, and work sector.

Main Methods:

A comprehensive mail survey was distributed to all non-retired physicians licensed in Finland.
The study achieved a high response rate of 75.6% (n = 17,172).

Main Results:

Physicians under 30 reported ethically problematic decisions at 60%, decreasing to 21% for those over 63.
Withdrawing necessary treatments was the only ethical issue that did not decrease with age.
Women and primary care physicians reported more ethical problems; primary care physicians cited overtreatment/pressure, while hospital physicians cited undertreatment due to resource limits.

Conclusions:

Younger physicians experience pressure towards overtreatment, while older physicians face resource constraints hindering adequate care.
Older physicians may have less exposure to ethical issues, better coping mechanisms, or lower ethical sensitivity.
Targeted support for young physicians resisting overtreatment pressure and training for older physicians in ethical issue recognition are recommended.