Module VII

I've recently seen a great movie that discusses not only the evolution of health care but also health ethics. "Something The Lord Made" is a movie that chronicles the career of a black medical lab assistant that contributes to a major portion of another prevalent white physician who worked as the head of surgery at Johns Hopkins. Without any formal education, it shows how he went on to improve techniques that brought soldiers out of shock as well as techniques to perform the first heart surgery to treat the "blue baby" syndrome. From an ethical perspective it also chronicles a variety of ethical issues such as racial discrimination, animal testing, as well as whether or not heart surgery was an ethical area to research to begin with. This was due to a religious principle of keeping the heart intact. A principle I had never heard of since it is now less of an issue. I just thought how it was interesting how ethical dilemmas can go in and out of the public consciousness as technology and science advances. This movie also had an interesting point about animal experimentation. For instance, many dogs were used and killed through the research of the main character's career. Although I am generally against animal experimentation I couldn't help but think about the number of lives saved through his invention of heart surgery and the techniques to treat patients with blue baby syndrome and those who go into shock from blood loss.

In my last mini paper I actually stumbled upon a relatively new ethical phenomenon occurring in the workplace. I originally was going to do my paper on theft in the workplace and how it can force many companies into bankrupt. During my research I learned about medical identity theft and its very dangerous effects. Medical identity is the use of another person's name or insurance information to receive health care, interceptions of reimbursement for actual or falsified charges. For example, a doctor could write you a prescription during your stay in a hospital for narcotics and pick it up himself. Although this sounds like it only has financial repercussions it can also have deadly medical consequences. By changing information on your medical record for illegal reimbursement or the access to certain health goods or care, this false information could lead to serious medical errors. I would encourage everyone to look into this issue and stay on top of their health records, payment history with their insurance provider as well as their credit history.