Ethics Week 8

Yeah last blog! I'm happy to be almost done with this semester. I finished my third mini paper, which actually ended up being my favorite. I wrote the paper on patient autonomy for end of life decision making. The Great Debate is all finished up. It was fun and way different from doing a face to face debate. It was much easier to respond to the opposition when you have time to write a well thought out response. The only assignments I have left to do are three more decision board response which I will finish up over the next two days. I am going to follow the same trend for my blog this week and reflect on the interesting points in the reading for the week.

In the Perry book we didn't have a case to read but just a general section titled the ethics of managing people. It was a good conclusion to the book. Ethical dilemmas involve people making decisions and managers must support their employees and provide them with the tools necessary to make ethical decisions. Employees are a resource that is essential to the success of an organization and they should have a safe work environment. They should be protected from harassment and discrimination. It is the Managers job to make sure this thought becomes a realization. It must be extremely difficult for managers to not only work about their duty to the organization to perform financially and productively but to also protect employees and support them emotionally. This section make me think about the case in this book where the female intern worked with a male mentor and CEO. The CEO was trying to protect himself and the intern from potential wrongful actions associated with a sexual attraction. His actions back fired and he was accused of discrimination. It must be like walking on egg shells. This class has almost scared me to take a management position. I am an indecisive person in nature and i picture myself stressing my life away trying to figure out ethical dilemmas. I am sure when put in the actually situation it will come more naturally to make decisions. I think I have thus far prepared myself through education.
The rest of the chapter is almost like a handbook for ethical behavior in the day to day duties of a manager. I think I will keep this book to help alleviate my stress when trying to make ethical decisions.

The chapters in the Hofmann book are similar in topic to those of the Perry book. I was going to write my third mini paper on accountability but in the end switched to autonomy. I think accountability is an important topic. Accountability seems to be addressed in several ways. First organizations are accountable for their actions and should report their performance and errors to the public. This ensure that the public is well informed and able to make decisions for their best interest. Organizations are also accountable to their employees, as addressed in the first section of the Hofmann reading. Organizations are accountable for setting ethical and moral standards for employees to follow. These standards require explicit attention, articulation, education, practice, re informant and rewards. Basically you cant ask employees to act ethically and morally if you, the health care organization or executive, are not doing the same. This seems simple and seems to make sense, however some organizations find it difficult, or they just choose not to follow. Which ever the case it is important for any organization, especially a health care organization to set an ethically example for their employees and the community. If the health care organization which is utilized for saving lives and treating people, isn't ethical then who is?