The Four Ethical Principles In Health Care

Ethics are crucial a component of health care and triage. According to Sztajnkrycer, ethics can be defined as “the discipline of virtue and righteous action, an attempt to define moral principles and thereby resolve moral dilemmas.” In essence, ethics attempts to discern between matters of right and wrong. In practice, ethics requires the exercise of morals and values. Ethical actions are choices made based on moral principles developed from habit and define one’s character. The field of medicine and health care raises numerous ethical concerns and thus has distinct ethical guidelines. Today, health care in the United States is largely based upon the four ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. While …show more content…
The cornerstone of this tenet is the principle of utility, also referred to as the greatest happiness principle. According to John Hardy, “that actions or behaviors are right in so far as they promote happiness or pleasure, wrong as they tend to produce unhappiness or pain.” There is a general consensus among bioethicist, clinicians and other experts that this principle strives to do the greatest good for the greatest number of injured. This principle demonstrates the high value we place on human life. Achieving the greatest good for the greatest number of people not only requires decisions based on the prioritization of treatment but also the effective use of resources. Decisions based in utilitarian triage must also consider the effects on future patient care, which is nearly impossible to predict. Utilitarianism calls into question the fairness of the allocation of scarce resources because emergency responders may provide care to many seriously injured victims instead of caring for an individual with a high chance of survival. This could adversely impact the future care and survival of the less injured person, which isn’t fair …show more content…
Due to the dynamism and individuality of these values and beliefs, subjectivity becomes a huge ethical concern. Human life is of the utmost importance of triage because its primary goal is to identify and treat life-threatening injuries, however, the preservation of life is not guaranteed when exigent circumstances exist, such as low probability of survival or treatment that utilizes too many resources. Nonetheless, human life and dignity must be upheld as a fundamental triage value during emergency events, since all lives are equally valuable and worthy of equal protection from harm.
The ethics of triage are very complicated and vary with each scenario. Emergency responders who must perform triage must separate themselves from personal feelings, concerns, and biases regarding any single victim, to remain fair and objective. It is only in removing oneself from the individual components involved in triage that the overall goals and processes of triage become apparent and