Duty Based Ethics Case Study

1. Can the dental assistant refuse to assist in the procedure? The answer is no, the dental assistant cannot refuse to assist in this procedures. The dental assistant works under the direct supervision of a licensed dentist. The dentist has a legal responsibility to assure that his dental practice and the dental staff adhere to medical law and ethics. The dentist has an obligation to follow all law and policies set forth by The American Dental Association, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations, The Federal Americans Disabilities Act, and any State legislation. Healthcare professionals are legally and ethically bond to treat patients infected by HIV in the same manner they would treat non HIV infected patients. According to the American Dental Associations, “All dentist and all staff with direct patient contact should follow Standard Precautions with all patients.” Standard precautions are a set of infection control practices used to prevent transmission of diseases that can be acquired by contact with
The type of ethics subscribed to this case was the Duty-Based Ethics. Duty-Based Ethics is related to this case largely on beliefs that the dental assistant needed to practice with moral reasoning and his actions should be have been universal. Duty-based ethics states, “there is has a line of moral reasoning that follows the belief that our actions should be universal and everyone would act the same way with the same set of circumstances.” This interpretation should be every patient will be treated with the same level of compassion. In this case the patient was honest about his diagnosis of AIDS and should have been treated with both compassion and respect. I can only imagine how this patient was made to feel when they saw the dental assistant freeze. All procedures in a dental practice should have current policies concerning dental treatment for the HIV patient and the use of Standard Precautions, which are utilized for all