Pros And Cons Of Public Health Ethics

Public health is different than the clinical nature of medicine (Callahan & Jennings, 2002). While there is a greater push for the understanding of public health ethics for the betterment of the population, health care professionals cannot forget their main focus of “do no harm” to the patient. Public health ethics is a fairly new idea (Williams & Torrens, 2008). The pros to my new idea of better education and training would be to provide insight to the health care professionals that they have not been exposed to in the past. By educating them, they can pass the initiatives on to other coworkers to provide more exposure for public health ethics. This will allow for professions to address the complex ideals behind public health ethics.
Another pro would be that these health care professionals would help with educating the public in health promotion and prevention. Once they learn the concepts and theories behind the ethics of public health, they can help educate the population as well. Obviously, one con would be the cost. Who would provide the training? Would it be a part of the curriculum in their education? Would hospitals and other facilities be responsible for training individuals who have already completed their schooling? Another con one could argue is this would take away from the patient care aspect. If we neglect the patient, one could view it as neglecting the community as well. Like trust in the patient-physician relationship, this would have to be gaining in the community as well.

I would convince others that my idea is better by educating them on the need to bridge the gap of medical ethics and public health ethics. I would show them many conflicts between the AMA code of ethics and the APHA code of ethics. Once you educate them on the need for the change, you can influence them on how to promote the change.