Ethical Issue for Medical Student

Ethical issues

Standard precaution is an important measure that doctors need to follow every time they deal with patients. It includes effective hand washing before and after any procedures, wearing gloves when handling any body fluid, wearing a mask when treating patients with airborne diseases and many more.

It is very important for a doctor to wear proper gloves when withdrawing patient's blood regardless what the patient's health problem is. In the medical wards it is hard to see a doctor wearing gloves when withdrawing a patient's blood. It is true that the doctor knows whether the patient is having a blood borne illness or not, but doctor should practice standard precaution every time whenever they handle a patient to avoid any bad impression from the patient, patient's family members and even medical students.

Doctor and nurse are professional professions that always get everyone's attention, respect and high expectation. They should not talk about unrelated things or laugh improperly in front of a patient when treating, handling or doing procedures to a patient. This is very important to make sure that the patient knows that the doctor and nurse respect him and gain the patient respect as a return. This is crucial because they need full cooperation from the patient for good management.

In medical wards, when the doctors go for ward round, sometimes I can hear they talk about things that are not related to the patient case, hospital or even medicine. One time I saw a doctor asking a COAD patient to show her how he used an inhaler. While the patient taking the inhaler inside the drawer beside his bed, the doctor started to talk to her colleague about unrelated things and they didn't look at the patient when he used the inhaler and repeated it for 5 times. This is unacceptable as the patient can be over dose by the medication or he will not get the proper dose needed because of wrong technique of using inhaler.