Tolerance of ambiguity & Ethics

Question 1

163. Is it better to give health care or aid to impoverished countries?

Answer 1

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Question 2

164. Why can’t doctors give a guarantee that a medical or surgical procedure will be successful?

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Question 3

165. Should doctors have a role in contact sports such as boxing?

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Question 4

166. Do you think doctors should ever go on strike?

Answer 4

Should Doctors ever go on strike?

This is an ethical/social question therefore tackle with arguments, for, against and then conclude.

Argument for:
– Workers go on strike to voice dissatisfaction with work conditions. For example, If Doctors are forced to work in hazardous conditions and management refuses to improve the situation they have a right strike.

Argument against:
– Doctors provide an essential service. If they go on strike there will be no one to provide this service in the interim. It is irresponsible for people who save lives to “down tools” as people will die as a result of this. Doctors striking have bigger repercussions that members of other professions e.g. teachers striking.

Conclude with your opinion. Ensure you have a ‘safe’opinion that the rest of the population would agree with. For example, striking should never be the first solution, communication channels need to be set up so conditions can be negotiated. If management refused to listen to multiple pleas from the body of Doctors, try and involve the BMA. If this still does not work then maybe going on strike would be the last option. You would however ensure all patients in critical conditions were transferred to a place where they could be cared for.

With this question it is easy to jump in and say Doctors should never strike but this comes across as opinionated. If you give both sides of the argument it shows you are open minded and have awareness of greater issues, these are some of the qualities of a good doctor.

Question 5

167. Do you think we should find out more about patients’ views of their doctors, their illness or their treatments? How would you set about this?

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Question 6

168. What do you think are the major sorts of problems facing a person with a long-term health problem, such as difficulty breathing?

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Question 7

169. What are the differences between length of life and quality of life?

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Question 8

170. Is there a moral case against drug companies becoming as large and powerful as the market allows them to be?

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Question 9

171. What are the arguments for and against the decriminalisation of drugs such as cocaine?

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Question 10

172. Should alternative or complimentary medicine be funded by the NHS, and why?

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Question 11

173. Should the NHS be involved in non-essential surgery?

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Question 12

174. Should the NHS fund the treatment of self-inflicted diseases?

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Question 13

175. With the growing problems of overpopulation should the NHS fund IVF treatment?

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Question 14

176. How do you think doctors should treat injury or illness due to self-harm, smoking or excess alcohol consumption?

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Question 15

177. Female infertility treatment is expensive, has a very low success rate and is even less successful in smokers. To whom do you think it should be available?

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Question 16

178. Would you prescribe the oral contraceptive pill to a 14-year old girl who is sleeping with her boyfriend?

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Question 17

179. What is your feeling about euthanasia?

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Question 18

180. Would you perform abortions as a doctor?

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Question 19

181. Is it right that Viagra should only be available to certain groups of men?

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Question 20

182. Some Trusts are refusing to perform some elective operations on obese patients. Why do you think that it? Do you think it’s right?

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Question 21

183. What do you think about the use of animals for testing new drugs?

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Question 22

184. How do you respond and what do you feel when you see a beggar in the street?

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Question 23

185. Do you think that Class A drugs should be legalised?

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Question 24

186. Would being a Christian, and therefore having a more positive view to death, be detrimental in your role as a doctor? (This was a Cardiff questions! Potentially discriminatory…)

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Question 25

187. A man refuses treatment for a potentially life-threatening condition. What are the ethical issues involved?

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Question 26

188. A woman who is bleeding heavily refuses to receive a blood transfusion that you are proposing. Why do you think this might be? How would you handle the issue?

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Question 27

189. You have one liver available for transplant, but two patients with equal medical need. One is an ex-alcoholic mother with two young children, the other a 13 year old with an inborn liver abnormality. How would you decide to whom it should be given?

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Question 28

190. You have one dialysis machine to share between three patients with equal medical need. One is a 17-year-old drug addict who has just overdosed, one is a 40-year old woman with terminal breast cancer and only 6 months of life expectancy, the third one is a 70-year old marathon runner. Who gets the machine?

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Question 29

191. Imagine you are on committee able to recommend only one of two new surgical treatments to be made available through the NHS. The treatments are: an artificial heart for babies born with heart defects, or a permanent replacement hip for people with severe arthritis. Both treatments are permanent, i.e. never need repeating, and are of equal cost. On what grounds would you make your arguments?

Answer 29

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