do you guys know some ethical dilemmas?

“The Heinz Dilemma”

In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. the drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $400 for the radium and charged $4,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money and tried every legal means, but he could only get together about $2,000, which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying, and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.” So, having tried every legal means, Heinz gets desperate and considers breaking into the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife.

Should Heinz steal the drug?

1a. Why or why not?

2. Is it actually right or wrong for him to steal the drug?

2a. Why is it right or wrong?

3. Does Heinz have a duty or obligation to steal the drug?

3a. Why or why not?

“Dad Dilemma”

Joe is a fourteen-year-old boy who wanted to go to camp very much. His father promised him he could go if he saved up the money for it himself. So Joe worked hard at his paper route and saved up the forty dollars it cost to go to camp, and a little more besides. But just before camp was going to start, his father changed his mind. Some of his friends decided to go on a special fishing trip, and Joe’s father was short of the money it would cost. So he told Joe to give him the money he had saved from the paper route. Joe didn’t want to give up going to camp, so he thinks of refusing to give his father the money.

Should Joe refuse to give his father the money?

1a. Why or why not?

2. Does the father have the right to tell Joe to give him the money?

2a. Why or why not?

3. Does giving the money have anything to do with being a good son?

3a. Why or why not?

“Theft Dilemma”

Two young men, brothers, had got into serious trouble. They were secretly leaving town in a hurry and needed money. Karl, the older one, broke into a store and stole a thousand dollars. Bob, the younger one, went to a retired old man who was known to help people in town. He told the man that he was very sick and that he needed a thousand dollars to pay for an operation. Bob asked the old man to lend him the money and promised that he would pay him back when he recovered. Really Bob wasn’t sick at all, and he had no intention of paying the man back. Although the old man didn’t know Bob very well, he lent him the money. So Bob and Karl skipped town, each with a thousand dollars.

Which brother was more wrong?

Why would you say that?

What do you think is the worst thing about cheating the old man?

Why is that the worst thing?

It comes from AP:

Federal Report Slams LA Transplant Program

Wed Dec 28, 2005 5:02 AM ET

A climate of “fear and retribution” kept workers in St. Vincent Medical Center’s now-closed liver transplant program from speaking up about a serious ethical breach and prompted them to cover it up by falsifying documents, according to a new federal report.

The breach occurred in 2003 when the hospital improperly arranged for a man to receive a liver intended for a higher-priority patient, who ultimately died without undergoing a transplant.

The hospital’s acknowledgment of the breach in September spurred the inspection by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“Several transplant staff members described a working environment that did not foster openness but `fear and retribution,’ especially when staff voiced certain complaints or grievances or even when making recommendations,” the report said. “One staff member stated that the transplant director at the time had a ‘my way or the highway’ attitude that prevented staff from raising any concern.”

Furthermore, the scathing 99-page report concluded that the hospital misled the patient for whom the donated liver was originally intended by telling him that he was still a candidate for an organ even after he was removed from the waiting list when the liver was transplanted into someone else.

The report also found that St. Vincent was out of compliance with eight conditions that must be met by hospitals receiving federal money. The hospital could lose its federal funding if the problems persist.

Hospital officials, in a response attached to the report, said they had taken steps to address the shortcomings including establishing a new transplant committee that answers directly to the hospital’s governing board and creating a hot line for employees to report problems.

St. Vincent closed the liver transplant program last month and terminated its contracts with the doctors who ran it, Richard R. Lopez and Hector Ramos.

Attorneys for both doctors said their clients did nothing wrong and never ordered anyone to cover anything up or submit false information to regulators.

in one word should we legalese euthanasia?euthanasia is the biggest moral dilama facing doctors for past half century.