End Of Life Healthcare Ethical Dilemmas

End-of-life healthcare decisions are one of the most challenging aspects of medical treatment. In end-of-life healthcare decisions, a decision frequently must be made between advanced medical intervention and allowing the patient to die peacefully. Although everyone involved in a patient’s treatment wants what is best for a patient, the situation can become a challenging ethical dilemma because what is best for a patient is often unclear. If extraordinary medical intervention is attempted and allows the patient to continue living a happy life, that is clearly an awesome outcome. However, what if extraordinary medical intervention is attempted and the patient is forced to endure a prolonged life of suffering? Conversely, what if extraordinary medical intervention is not attempted but the decision makers are forced to live questioning if their decision to withhold medical treatment was what killed the patient? These types of doubt are what make end-of-life healthcare decisions such difficult decisions to consider. Because end-of-life healthcare decisions are challenging ethical dilemmas that are affected by many …show more content…
However, beneficence is also one of the four principles of health care ethics, and it states that “health care providers must do all they can to benefit the patient in each situation” (Saint Joseph’s University, 2017). In an end-of-life healthcare decision, this obviously presents a complex ethical dilemma because each healthcare treatment option supports a different principle of health care ethics. If a patient is allowed to die peacefully, the doctor could be practicing non-maleficence while neglecting beneficence. However, if the physician performs an extraordinary attempt to save the patient’s life, the physician could be practicing beneficence while neglecting