Bioethics | Ron Domen | TEDxYoungstown

Bioethics are discussed.
Ronald E. Domen, MD is currently a Professor of Pathology, Medicine, and Humanities; and, Medical Director, Histocompatibility (HLA/transplant) Laboratory at the Penn State University College of Medicine/Penn State Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, Pennsylvania. His thirty-two year career has focused on the practice of blood banking/transfusion medicine, and HLA. At Penn State he serves on numerous institution-level committees including the Ethics Committee, the Conflict of Interest Review Committee of the IRB/HSPO, and the Equity Advisory Committee; and, from 2005-2013 he was the Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education where he oversaw 58 residency and fellowship training programs with over 550 trainees. He was an elected member of the Doctors Kienle Center for Humanistic Medicine at the Penn State College of Medicine for ten years. Prior to coming to Penn State fifteen years ago, Dr. Domen’s professional and academic career took him to The Ohio State University, the University of South Florida, to a regional blood center in eastern Pennsylvania where he served as the Medical Director, and The Cleveland Clinic. He is a nationally recognized expert in transfusion medicine and has also been active on the national level in addressing medical education and ethical issues in pathology, transfusion medicine, and transplantation, and has also published in these areas including co-editing the seminal book: Ethical Issues in Transfusion Medicine. Dr. Domen is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Clinical Pathology (Laboratory Medicine), and Blood Banking/Transfusion Medicine. He was a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (poetry) and has been writing poetry for many years and has numerous poems published in anthologies and small press magazines including: Whiskey Island Magazine, Yarrow, Slipstream, Riverwind, Earth First!, Slant, Grasslands Review, Green Fuse, and others. He has over 60 peer-reviewed papers published in the medical literature including two scholarly papers published in The International Journal of Healthcare & Humanities entitled, “Ethics and narrative medicine: who owns the story?,” and “The Physician as Poet.” He also served as the poetry editor for The International Journal of Healthcare & Humanities. While at Penn State, Dr. Domen taught medical students for many years in the College of Medicine’s medical humanities program, and has taught and mentored numerous residents and fellows in various graduate medical education venues.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx

[@jennapepper1783]

This Ted Talk brings about a lot of good questions regarding ethics in health care. One question this physician asks is, which bleeding patient will get the platelet transfusion? Physicians are faced with these types of questions every day and there are a lot of ways to answer it. From a utilitarian standpoint, they would ask you which would bring about the greater good for the greater number of people. A utilitarian would give the platelets to whatever patient that would create the greatest good from living. That means they do not care about if an action is right or wrong, only about the outcome. From a virtue ethics standpoint, either patient receiving the platelets would be the right decision, as long as the reasons for giving the platelets are appropriate.

[@revellyte4898]

@Jenna Pepper To say that utilitarians "do not care about if an action is right or wrong, only about the outcome" is unfair. For the utilitarian, the fact that an action leads to the best outcome just is what it means for that action to be right. Giving platelets in a way that does not maximize utility would be wrong on their view. It's not that they think one option is morally right, but since the other option leads to better outcomes they should do that anyway. In fact that's incoherent on the utilitarian view; what it is moral to do just is what leads to the best outcome. And even if they are wrong about what it is for an action to be right or wrong, they are still trying to do what they think is right. So again, utilitarians do care about right and wrong.

[@t29m3nf93d]

As I am studying about medical ethics, your response is quite informative and interesting. I agree that it's a difficult issue that healthcare professionals deal with on a daily basis. Giving platelets to the patient who would benefit from them the most would, from a utilitarian standpoint, lead to the greatest good for the largest number of individuals. This point of view might not always be in line with the needs of specific patients, unfortunately. Giving platelets to either patient would be an acceptable option from the perspective of virtue ethics, as long as it respects the standards of the medical profession and is justified by relevant factors. I also think that oftentimes physicians in this position don’t have time to ponder the ethical considerations of their actions that frequently need to be made in a split second. While discussing and considering bioethics is an important thing to do for every healthcare professional, understanding that a significant number of these decisions will be made with haste and under immense pressure is important. Another point to be made in this scenario is, did we even consider what the patient might want? I know this sounds like a mute point to consider but there are specific communities that refuse transfusions even if they are life saving. Now imagine on top of debating what patient should receive the platelets first you have to then consider, does the patient even want this? Regardless, this just emphasizes the complicated decision making that is required in these situations.
Healthcare professionals are influenced in their decision-making processes by an array of essential medical ethics principles in addition to these ethical points of view. Respect for personal autonomy, beneficence, fairness, and non-maleficence are a few of these. These guidelines give a framework for healthcare professionals to make difficult choices while considering the interests of everyone involved. It is important to tackle these situations with caution, empathy, and careful consideration.

[@yuriichernenko794]

Nobody cares of this during pandemic