Essay About Young Doctors And Student Doctor

The Question of Autonomy in the “student Doctor” and a Wary Patient
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The Question of Autonomy in The “Student Doctor” and a Wary
Patient
The “Student Doctor” and a Wary Patient brings to light an
interesting dilemma in the medical field, which is: “How do
we introduce young doctors to hands-on experience without
sacrificing the quality of practice in hospitals?” This is a
problem whose intricacies are exposed when James Denton, the
young student doctor in our case, is confronted with the need
to put his patient at ease and act with confidence, while at
the same time not sacrificing the patients autonomy by
misinforming him (which, unfortunately, Denton fails to
protect). The ultimate question is, “At what point and by
what method can Denton achieve balance between autonomy and
beneficence?” Most would agree honesty is a staple in ethics,
and I maintain that holds true here. James Denton is verily
bound to be honest, and by doing so he may very well account
for the patients well being, as well as his right to know
what is being done to his body.
As part of Dentons training, we assume that he must
gain experience dealing with his patients one-on-one and
project confidence, and his attempt succeeds perhaps too
well. He introduces himself as a “student doctor,” which is
certainly honest, but whether the patient does not catch
this, or simply only hears “doctor,” before you know it hes
calling Denton “doctor” and asking questions that assume a
certain degree of experience. Furthermore, he clearly brings
up his distrust for the student doctor population, which
makes Denton even more uncomfortable. This is clearly an
unfortunate situation, as the patients fear is probably
weakly founded and more than slightly unreasonable, and
Denton