Ethical and Moral Issues

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Ethical and Moral Issues

Medical dosimetrists work with the radiation oncologists to ensure that cancer patients get their treatment through radiation. They design a treatment plan, which shows how the patients will receive their treatment. They target the radiation to the affected area. This is a specialized and sensitive role. The dosimetrists are guided by a code of ethics, which gives priority to the patient’s safety. These standards are only applicable to the people who have been certified by the Medical Dosimetrist Certification Board. The dosimetrist is required to conduct his or her profession with skill. The dosimetrist should not deceive harm or defraud the public. He or she is not expected to misrepresent a material in any form. This is especially important as various scientists and researchers emerge with new ways of ensuring that the patients recover fully. Although this is a commendable effort in their part, there are chances that the proposed methods could be used in a risky way, such as when they use the patients as experiments. In order to avoid this, the government has put in place measures to ensure that dosimetrists and other medical practitioners follow the set ethical standards. Dosimetrists have to be careful of violating their code of ethics. This is because the ethical standards might not cover the emerging technology in the field of radiation (MDCB, 2011).

Radiation is a sensitive form of treatment. The treatment involves directing the radiation to the affected cells. However, in the process of doing this, other non-cancerous cells may be affected. One of the most debated issues today is in the field of beauty. Many women, who are not satisfied with their appearance, opt to go for plastic surgery. This is especially the case for women who want to change the size of their breasts. This issue is a moral issue, as some people do not understand why a person would want to change their breasts. Some people openly condemn breast augmentation and they cite the fact that people should learn to accept themselves as they are. Their views are further supported by the findings that one in eight women who chose to undergo breast augmentation will develop breast cancer (Bardi, 2008).

Radiation therapy is required after lumpectomy, so that it can destroy the cells that might have remained. The installation of breast implants complicates the work of dosimetrists since they are not able to plan the treatment effectively. During breast augmentation surgery, the surgeon may place a metal expander in the breast. This is dangerous for the women who are undergoing radiation therapy. When the radiation is exposed to the metal expander, it will cause excessive skin damage. Risks are enhanced when the doctor decides to perform radiation therapy on the entire breast. The radiation causes the scar tissue to harden and it becomes painful (Bardi, 2008).

Although it is important to invest in new technology, researchers and doctors should not be quick to use new equipment without verification. This is a real problem in hospitals today as doctors try to find new, safe and more effective cures. One ethical case happened recently, when one hospital used a new machine during radiology. The dosimetrists and the other radiology team were not familiar with how the machine worked and they overdosed the radiation treatment on three patients. This occurred as the doctors used a device that had been introduced at that time. The device targeted the weak parts of the body when giving radiations. It was highly intensive and it allowed radiation to spill out of the metal. This means that it targeted the healthy parts of the body as it was trying to destroy the cancerous cells. Researchers are constantly trying to develop machines that will target the most sensitive and seemingly unreachable parts of the affected organs such as the brain and the spinal cord. Some of the tumors that reside in the region are small and unreachable, and the doctors cannot find any ways to reach them (Bogdanich, 2010).

The above issues highlight some of the ethical and moral issues that will affect dosimetrists in future. It will increase the government regulations and restrictions of various services, and it will complicate the work of the dosimetrists. The moral issue highlighted dealt with breast augmentation. This issue illustrates how the extensions installed in the implants complicate the work of a dosimetrist. The ethical issue that was highlighted focused on the emerging machines that are used in radiology. The machines have not been tested enough and they have not been verified fully, to remove any doubts about their working conditions. In one way, the researchers and the hospitals that choose to use these equipments are treating the patients as experiments. This is an ethical issue and one that is precisely detailed in the ethical standards guidelines of the dosimetrists. It affects the field of dosimetry, as it will compel the government to put stricter regulations of all the proposed radiation equipment.

References

Bardi, S. J. (2008). Breast cancer treatment spares implants. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/3139-breast-cancer-treatment-spares-implants.html

Bogdanich, W. (2010, December). A pinpoint beam strays invisibly, harming instead of healing. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/health/29radiation.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

MDCB (2011). Ethical standards and ethics complaint procedures of the medical dosimetrist certification board. Medical Dosimetrist Certification Board. Retrieved from http://www.mdcb.org/about/ethics.htm

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