Carter_Case Study Essay
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Dec 6, 2023
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Carter 1
Gloria Carter
Dr. Diana Heney
PHIL 1008
17 December 2022
Case Study Two of Informed Consent
A woman in her thirties became infected with HIV and hepatitis following a kidney
transplant from a donor who was infected with these illnesses. The woman was unaware that the
donor was at considerable risk for the ailments but was rather told that the donor was a healthy
young man. This is a morally salient fact of the case as the patient did not receive adequate
information about the donor and his health status from her health care providers, so she was
unable to make a fully informed, consensual decision regarding her own medical care. The
medically salient facts are as follows. She was one of four organ transplant patients to test
positive for HIV and hepatitis after receiving an organ from the same donor, and the donor was a
high-risk, thirty-eight-year-old, gay man. These facts are significant to the case because the CDC
has explicit guidelines stating that gay men who are sexually active should be prohibited as organ
donors, and this rule was violated and has now directly impacted the health of four patients. The
patient in the case was also not in dire need for an immediate organ donation as evidenced in the
fact that she had denied a previous donor; therefore, it was not necessary to perform this
operation on her as a life-saving measure. The patient now suffers from side effects due to the
antibiotics that she has been prescribed as they damage her kidneys, and the combination of the
antibiotics and the antirejection medication from the operation have left her
immunocompromised and at an extreme risk for opportunistic infection. This is pertinent medical
information as the patient appears to be in worse health than she was prior to the donation, but
Carter 2
also her condition is morally salient as her quality of life has decreased, and the health care
providers did not take the precautions to ensure that their healthcare services would be improving
her life and health status.
To approach this case, the ethical theory of Care Ethics will be employed. Many moral
theories overlook the significance of caring as an essential aspect of morality, but Carol
Gilligan’s development of Care Ethics as present in her work
In a Different Voice
focuses on a
more expansive notion of morality. The mechanisms of Care Ethics
are an emphasis on the
ethical response and meeting the other morally. The phrase “meeting the other morally” is
defined as consideration for the well-being of others based on the societal role in which they
have with the person and treating the person with an ethical level of care that is appropriate with
the relationship. The guiding normative notion of this ethical theory is caring, and caring is
performed by considering the receptivity, relatedness, and responsiveness of the relationship,
which in this case is between the health care provider, primarily the head physician of the health
care team, and the patient receiving the donation. I selected this ethical theory to apply to this
case because of the emphasis Care Ethics places on the relationship between the health care
providers and the patient, and this care is the moral guide to making decisions regarding the
health the patient, which includes providing the patient with the ability to obtain informed
consent and promoting the health and wellbeing of the patient. I believe that the relationship
between the one-caring and the one being cared-for is the initial point in which the health care
team failed the patient by not considering her as an equal.
In application of Care Ethics to this case, it is important to consider the idea that a failure
to prioritize the relationship between the one-caring and the one being cared-for is a moral
mistake. When adequate information is not disclosed to the patient, they are unable to make a
Carter 3
fully informed decision; informed consent has been violated in this case. Care was not
demonstrated towards the patient as she was lied to about the identifying factors of the donor and
by purposefully ignoring her preference against those with this lifestyle. It is also significant that
the CDC specifically prohibits organ donors who are sexually active gay men, and the health
care providers treating the woman disregarded this pertinent guideline. Reciprocity is also a
significant aspect of Care Ethics, and the patient’s communication of what she desired for her
healthcare was not reciprocated by her health care providers as they blatantly ignored her wishes.
Care was also neglected as seen in the medically salient fact that the woman did not need an
emergency organ donation; furthermore, there was time for the head physician of her healthcare
team to have an extensive discussion with her about the possibility of receiving the kidney from
this donor. A lack of care was shown toward the patient by not accommodating her with the time
and space to have an honest discussion about her health situation and the urgency in which she
needed to proceed with the procedure. Regarding the woman’s now declined health status, the
healthcare providers were inattentive to the probable repercussions to her health as she now takes
immunosuppressing and antirejection medication to treat her HIV and hepatitis illness and has a
decreased quality of life, which is in opposition to the purpose of the procedure. In fact, care was
not taken for neither the patient highlighted in this case nor the three other receivers of an organ
from the donor, alluding to the possibility that the health care providers that held responsibility
for the donor when he passed did not employ care for the possible recipients of his organs by
allowing the donations to occur.
The health care providers should have been honest about the donor and the presented all
the medically salient information they had about him so that the patient would have the ability to
make an informed decision with the adequate information needed. Care Ethics would
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Carter 4
recommend that there is no resolution to reverse the wrongdoings of the case, but a settlement
should be provided for the woman to cover her medical bills and ongoing treatments and
prescriptions, and this would ensure that this organ donation does not cause harm to her
economic wellbeing. Doing this would also show that the health care providers understand what
they have done wrong and are demonstrating that they care about her health and wellbeing.
The efficacy of Care Ethics in this medical case study is demonstrated through the
recommendations of what went wrong regarding informed consent and the patient’s right to
make autonomous decisions and a plausible result of the court case in which the women receives
a settlement. I believe that Care Ethics provided an excellent resolution to the case through its
guiding normative notion of caring being at the forefront of how the situation should have played
out and the mechanisms of ethical care and meeting the other morally being the means in which
care is performed.