ARTICLE CRITIQUES
Review and critique one journal article on legal and ethical studies related to counseling dilemmas. Each of the prepared critique should be single-spaced and one (1) page in length. The following outline should be adhered to in the construction of the critique.
a. Reference from journal in APA format
b. b. Outlin
(1). Summary of research article
(2). Ethical issues presented
(3). Conclusions/results
(4) Your reaction or opinion of the artic
RUBRIC:Research Critiques
Adhere to APA reference format
Use standard English
Adhere to one-page limit
Adhere to outline depicted in syllabus
Example paper
The Unfortunate Experiment
Article
Chalmers, I. (2020). The unfortunate experiment that was not, and the indebtedness of women and children to Herbert (Herb) Green (1916e2001). Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, vol. 122, A14-A20.
Summary
This article examines the reliability and efficacy of health care interventions. The authors note that sometimes medical interventions help eliminate health problems or lessen a chronic health condition’s effects. However, inadequacies in health intervention evaluation can harm the patients or lead to other devastating results. Ethical principles help address the ethical dilemmas in interventions since there is the risk of harming the participants through overtreatment of overdiagnosis. Chalmers’ argument on the “Unfortunate Experiment” presents a different view of medicine’s ethical and legal issues. The experiment refers to Dr. Herbert Green’s procedure examining the natural course of cervical cancer on women in New Zealand for the period between 1966 and 1988. Green continued studying and recording data on the untreated cervical lesions without the participants’ knowledge. Green withheld treatment and information from some participants leading to loss of life. His unethical acts attracted public outcry and later led to judicial and Cartwright inquiries.
Ethical Issues
In this article, Chalmers revisits some ethical and legal issues that Green faced, which led to labeling the procedure as an “Unfortunate experiment.” These include the failure to counsel the participants. In health practice, a code of ethics and standards guides counseling and offers a leveled platform for applying, assessing, and interpreting the participants’ medical information and procedures (Batt, 2017). In this experiment, Green left patients uninformed about cervical cancer screening and treatment using an unfit intervention at the time (Chalmers, 2020). The failure to inform participants of the real intentions of the experiment violated the participants’ self-respect. Providing patient knowledge allows the practitioner to gain informed consent and enables the participant to foster meaningful self-consent and self-care. Simply, it requires the practitioner to harm. Another ethical issue is the lack of beneficence, which is the commitment of every health practitioner to enhance the patient’s well-being. Chalmer supports that some medical interventions reduce harm or cease the participant’s health problem. Carcinoma in situ (CIS) was unpredictable for the progression and invasion of cervical cancer.
Thus if, in this case, Green provided treatment to the cervical patient, withholding the treatment from some participants and without the knowledge of the participant violated the non-maleficence, which is to avoid doing harm (Batt, 2017). This issue occurred alongside the breach of the principle of justice since Green allegedly withheld treatment from some patients and might have caused some deaths. The principle of justice in medical practice discourages unfair treatments to the participants. Such a situation refers to the case where similar cases receive different approaches or, in this case, treatments. Thus the unfortunate experiment contained legal issues of distributive justice.
Results and Conclusions
Chalmers’s research into the legal and ethical debates supports that contrary to most existing arguments that label Greens intervention as rationalizing, the unfortunate experiment was not unfortunate. It had its share of benefits to his patients and other cervical cancer patients that exist to date (Chalmers, 2020). Green withholding treatment cannot be termed unethical because, at the time, there lacked proper definitions for “conventional,” inadequate,” and the accepted treatment.
Reflection
Compared to the texts that I have read throughout this course, this journal presents a different approach to the “unfortunate experiment.” I like that after discussing the various debates arguing against the ethical responsibility in Green’s intervention, the author then goes ahead to criticize the Catwright reports. As a result, Chalmer provides overwhelming insight into Green’s case to the extent that the article exposes additional research gaps. Generally, I like the reading and recommend it to anyone looking to have a fascinating reading into the debates surrounding the
Use the order calculator below and get started! Contact our live support team for any assistance or inquiry.
[order_calculator]