In the modern world of high level of information accessibility and mass awareness of professionals' legal obligations, the role of decision-making in healthcare delivery has evolved into a system where health care policies and ethics has given the service users the absolute power to decide about their care. The purpose of this essay is to critically evaluate the role of healthcare professionals in relation to decision-making process from different ethical and legal perspectives, and discuss virtue ethics theory and principles that applies in the situation of a clinical dilemma to be presented. According to the code of conduct of the Nursing and midwifery council (NMC) for confidentiality (NMC, 2010), I declare the maintenance of the subject's (the child in the scenario) confidential information by the withdrawal of her real name and replacement with "Miss Kay".
Miss Kay, an exceptionally brilliant and articulate 14 years old girl, was found to have a severe anemia due to a long standing leukemia. Her doctor prescribed blood transfusion and bone marrow transplant in her treatment. Miss Kay's mother who is a Jehovah Witness member made it clear to the nurse that she would not consent to any treatment involving blood product. However, her husband who is Miss Kay's biological father is a catholic and was in contrary to the decision of his wife. On another occasion, when the nurse and the medical team where alone with Miss Kay she learnt that the chance of her to survive the condition without blood product is very slim. She verbalized that she is really scared of dying and she asked the team to do what so ever they think is the best. The dilemma of the situation to the nurse and the team was whether to respect the ethical principle of autonomy of the adolescent, to maintain the duty of care of beneficence, or to accept the wish of the religious belief of the mother and deny the adolescent the legal right of consenting for her treatment.
