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As a clinical medicine officer, I am obligated to ensure that the patients’ interests are

upheld and safeguarded at all times. The main objective of the nursing profession is to enhance

that lives are not lost due to ailments that can be treated with ease, hence, the medical

practitioners are involved in creating awareness among the community members on the best

measures they can adopt to boost their health welfare. Nevertheless, there are times when a

clinical medicine officer may encounter some hardships that may greatly limit his/her potential

to execute his/her duties as anticipated. At such times, it is always advisable for one to design

favorable techniques for solving the problem so as to ensure that the client is provided with the

best medication as soon as possible.

The Challenge

One of the main challenging events I have come across during my clinical medicine

profession is a day when I had a patient whose HB level was 5.2. As a result, he developed some

breathing problems and was in dire need of blood transfusion. Unfortunately, the medical

center’s policies dictated that the blood transfusion process could only be undertaken after the

client’s relatives - or friends - donated some blood, which would be used as a replacement to the

one given to the problem. At this point, I was faced with two main challenges; act contrary to the

hospital’s dictations or let the client’s life remain at stake as we waited for his family members to

come and donate blood. It is worth noting that one of the key guiding principles of nursing is the

doctrine of beneficence. The principle dictates that medical practitioners should always remain

compassionate while handling the patients. As a result, they - the health practitioners - should

strive to do good by taking undertaking positive actions that would be geared towards

ascertaining that possible measures are implemented to make sure that the lives of the

community members are not threatened by any ailment in any situation. Additionally, the
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nursing code of ethics dictate that medical officers must ensure that justice is upheld whenever

they are faced with competing interests. In this scenario, one would no doubt be faced with a

dilemma on whether to act according to the hospital rules or execute his/her duties as anticipated.

Therefore, it goes without saying that the main essence of the guiding principles is to make sure

that the interests of the societal members supersede those of the medical practitioners or of their

respective health institutions.

Additionally, the clinical medicine officers are obligated to intervene in cases whereby a

community members’ health might be at stake although he/she – the patient – might not be in a

position to follow all the laid down guidelines before he/she gets treatment (Zahedi et.al, 2013).

It is crucial to note that each individual has a right to the appropriate medical care irrespective of

his/her background (Zahedi et.al, 2013). Thus, there is no rationale as to why anyone should be

denied medical services due to his/her inability to cater for the expected costs or failure to abide

by the laid out stipulations. Medical practitioners should always be humane, which implies that

at times, they would be forced to offer their services to the community members even if they –

the people – may not have followed the right procedures just for the sake of saving lives.

Besides, it would be rational to point out that the case at hand was quite urgent – or could be

treated as an emergency – hence, it would be justifiable to provide the client with medication

without emphasizing on the need to follow the hospital’s policies. Emergency situations prompt

the clinicians to act as soon as possible in order to make sure that the patient does not succumb to

death. In most cases, failing to attend to the patient immediately – may be due to the fact that the

health officer must follow the health center’s guidelines – would lead to the death of the client,

which would eventually be blamed on the medical practitioner’s negligence of duty. Thus, in this

case, the client needed immediate medical checkup since he had already developed some
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breathing complications. Dictating that the blood transfusion process would be carried out only

after his relatives – allies – showed up to donate blood would pose some significant threat to his

life. Assuming that he succumbed to death, his family members may even file a lawsuit against

the hospital for failing to enact policies that mandate its employees to act in the best interests of

the community members. To avoid such an occurrence, it would be reasonable to cater for the

health interests of the client even without paying strict adherence to the regulations laid down by

the management.

The Solution

As aforementioned, as a clinical medicine officer, I had to guarantee upholding of the

patient’s health interests. To ensure that I achieved this objective, I volunteered to donate blood

in case none of his relatives - or allies - turned up to donate blood. By doing so, I was in a

position to force the physician to carry out the blood transfusion first before the client was taken

to the theatre for the abdominal hysterectomy.

The Creativity of the Solution and the Outcome

As noted above, the cause of the dilemma was the need to uphold the patient’s welfare

and the hospital’s policies as well. In this case, it would, therefore, not be rational for the client’s

treatment to be derailed as we waited for his family members to come and donate blood. The

main objective of the nursing professionals is to save lives and I was determined to go at any

length to make sure that the patient received the appropriate medication as soon as possible. The

creativity of the solution was in the sense that I made sure that the medical center’s dictations

were not violated and that the client was attended to as soon as possible. Thus, the outcome was
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that the solution enhanced to uphold both the patient and the hospital simultaneously irrespective

of the fact that they were competing in nature.

References

Rich, K., & Butts, J.M. (n.d.). Foundations of ethical nursing practice. Jones & Bartlett

Learning, LLC. Retrieved from

http://samples.jbpub.com/9781449691509/81982_CH04_Pass1.pdf

Zahedi, F., Sanjari, M., Aala, M., peymani, M., Aramesh, K., Parsapour, A., Maddah, S.S.B.,

Cheraghi, M.A., Mirzabeigi, G.H., Larijani, B., & Dastgerdi, V.M. (2013). The code of

ethics for nurses. Iranian Journal of Public Health, 42(1): 00. 1-8.