Healthcare Decision-Making in Addressing Complex Psychosocial Issues
Scenario: Your 85-year-old male patient is actively dying. No medical procedure or intervention will alter this reality. But only you and a few member of the medial team know this reality. You also know this information will be difficult for his family to hear. The patient; his wife; his middle-aged, first-born son; and the son’s wife have flown here from Asia with the hope of trying another treatment. But, now you realize that not only will the treatment not be an option, but that the patient’s condition is much, much worse than anyone initially believed.
In an earlier conversation with the middle-aged son, he told you that he did not want anyone to tell this father if his father’s condition worsened. Only the son was to be informed. According to the son, under no circumstances were his father or mother to be told. The son explained that this was the way it worked in their culture.
Tasks: Your job, as a healthcare professional, is threefold, and as follows:
First, you need to decide whom you tell about the 85-year-old patient’s changed health status. The patient? His wife? The son? The son’s wife? Or some combination of those individuals? This is your decision to make. No one else on the healthcare team will make this decision.
Second, you need to explain your decision to the team.
Third, you need to offer a brief overview of what you intend to tell the patient and/or members of his family about the patient’s condition.
Please create a short (no more than two pages, 1 1/2 line spacing) paper to explain your decisions. This will be done in two columns. In the left, column place your statements – exactly what you will say to the individuals/team - to the patient/family/team members. In the right column, place your explanations/justifications for your statements, using the Bioecological Theory. These should include direct, explicit links to the theory.
The goals of this assignment are to have you practice the following things:
- Strengthening your knowledge of Bioecological theory
- Explaining why and how you plan to address complex psychosocial issues
- Providing accurate information to patients, patients family members, and other professionals
You are writing for an individual who has NO KNOWLEDGE about the theory. (For this type of reader, you will need to choose your words carefully, and you may need to define terms.)
Your assignment should be clearly written and adhere to collegiate level expectations for written work. (For example, please use quotation marks on those rare occasions when you need to use a quote.)
You will need AT LEAST one reference. Your reference, as well as your internal citation, should be done in APA style. Please remember, each citation needs to be matched to a reference. (Citations/references allow readers to look up any information they might want to examine further, offer support for your statements, and reflect your independent research.)
The Result Section
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Professor’s Name.
Due Date
Who will you tell?
“I would wish to meet the son and the wife to receive some important information about their patient’s progress.”
What do you tell the team?
“Unfortunately, the patient does not respond to medical procedures and treatments. Therefore, after our several fruitless efforts, I have decided to inform the son and wife of what is happening. Moreover, I have decided to inform the son and the wife since the culture does not allow such information to be conveyed to the patient and wife.”
What will you say to the patient and/or family?
“Following several medical procedures and interventions done by the healthcare professionals to facilitate your patient’s healing, it is unfortunate that his condition is not manageable.”.
According to the Bioecological theory (Vélez-Agosto et al., 2017), people handle knowledge and information differently depending on their ecological context. Human beings have their type of intelligence that interprets situations differently depending on the stimuli they receive. The ability of individuals to comprehend and interpret situations is dependent on the filtering effect of the intellect.
Therefore, I would prefer to tell the son and the wife as the closest family members. Involving the two family members is essential since the news may be shocking to the son; hence, the wife’s presence will comfort him. Passing the information to them will create awareness of their family member’s situation. They need to know about the patient’s current health condition to make informed decisions concerning his health status. The decision is based on their culture (macro-system level); since it rejects providing health information concerning the patient, neither himself nor his wife. In the current situation, I have to act based on how the son confirms it. Therefore, I have to act best according to the son’s preference to embrace cultural competence. As the healthcare professional who wants to provide information, the family’s culture influences the interaction between the wife, patient, and me.
Since the son and wife is the microsystem within the patient, the information can disseminate to them.
The family profoundly holds the culture...