Ethics

Here is a direct study guide built strictly using only the text and statements provided in your original notes prompt. Every fill-in-the-blank, definition, and section directly mirrors your original notes sheet so you can study the exact material line-by-line.

📝 Part 1: Fill-in-the-Blank & Short Answer (From Notes)

Ethics

• Ethics provides guidelines for acceptable behavior.

• Professional associations provides codes of ethics for health careers to govern their behavior and increase standards of care within the profession.

• The health care worker maintains a high standard of ethical and legal behavior in their professional life as well as their private life.

HIPAA & Professional Boundaries

• You should not accept money or expensive gifts from your patients.

• Avoid socializing with patients or staff members at the health care facility.

Qualities of the Health Care Worker

• Accuracy: Be accurate in following directions and in reporting. Report any error or accident to supervisor at once.

• Honesty: Never give treatment that you are not qualified to perform. Know your limitations as a student. Be sincere, honest and trustworthy.

• Dependability: Complete assigned tasks and ask questions to be sure you understand an assignment before starting it. Consult your supervisor when help is needed or when unsure of what to do.

• Refer questions a patient may have to the patient’s doctor.

• Accountability: Describes "the state of being accountable, liable, or answerable" (Ex: admitting a mistake).

Enforcement & Laws

• Every person is responsible for enforcing the ethical code!

• Good Samaritan Law: Refers to someone who renders aid in an emergency to an injured person on a voluntary basis. The law states: "A person who in good faith administers emergency care at the scene of an emergency or in a hospital is not liable in civil damages for an act performed during the emergency unless the act is willfully or wantonly negligent."

⚖️ Part 2: Definitions & Vocabulary (From Notes)

• Civil Law: Focuses on legal relationships between people and the protection of a person's rights.

• Criminal Law: Focuses on wrongs against a person, property, or society.

• Abuse: Any care resulting in physical/sexual harm, or mental/emotional anguish (Ex. Physical abuse, verbal abuse, psychological abuse, and sexual abuse).

• Assault: Includes a threat or attempt to injure.

• Battery: Includes the unlawful touching of another person without consent.

• Defamation: Occurs when false statements either cause a person to be ridiculed or damage the person's reputation.

• Slander: Spoken defamation.

• Libel: Written defamation.

• False Imprisonment: Refers to restraining an individual or restricting an individual's freedom (Ex. Applying physical restraints without a legal, medical reason).

• Felony: A serious crime that carries a penalty of imprisonment for more than one year and possibly the death penalty.

• Misdemeanor: A lesser crime.

• Abandonment: Leaving a patient without turning over his care to another qualified healthcare professional.

• Invasion of Privacy: Includes unnecessarily exposing an individual or revealing personal information about an individual without that person's consent.

• Negligence: Failure to perform an act where the respective performance or non-performance deviates from an act that would have been done by reasonably prudent person under the same or similar condition (Failure to give care that is normally expected of a person in a particular position).

• Malpractice: Means "bad practice" and is commonly called "professional negligence".

• Will: A legal document that defines disposition of property which takes effect after death.

• Incident Report: Filled out in the hospital anytime something unusual occurs to either the staff, patient, or visitor.

• Litigation: Another word for lawsuit.

• Tort: Civil wrongs, as opposed to criminal acts, which can lead to legal action.

📋 Part 3: Confidentiality & Legal Exemptions

Examples of Health Care Information That Must Be Kept Confidential (Privileged Information)

• Patient history

• Physical examination

• Medical or dental procedures

Examples of Information That Is Exempt from Confidentiality by Law (Reporting Required)

• Births and deaths (filed with state registrar)

• Emergencies

• Injuries caused by violence

• Threats of serious bodily harm to another that may reasonably be believed

• Child abuse (physical/sexual)

• Vehicular accidents involving drug/alcohol

• A reportable communicable or sexually transmitted disease

🩺 Part 4: Special Topics & Procedures

• Informed Consent: A signed document stating that the patient understands the medical procedure and the risks involved. Requires a witness 21 or older, signed in black ink, and adult (18+) of sound mind. Phone consent requires two people to listen at the same time.

• AMA: Against Medical Advice (Leaving the hospital before properly discharged).

• Sexual Harassment: Unwelcome advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. Includes "Quid Pro Quo" ("Something for Something" or "Tit for Tat") where job security or advancement is linked to acceptance of sexual advances.

• Abuse and Neglect:

  • Abuse: Mental, emotional, physical, or sexual injury to a child, elder (65+), or adult with disabilities.

  • Child Neglect: Failure to provide food, clothing, shelter, and/or medical care, and leaving a child in a situation with risk of harm.

  • Elder/Disabled Neglect: Taking Social Security numbers/checks, abusing joint checking accounts, taking property or resources.

• Restraints: Any manual method, physical, or mechanical device that immobilizes or reduces the ability of a patient to move freely. Must be ordered by a physician (PRN orders not accepted) and applied/rechecked every 2 hours.

• Advance Directives: A legal document which conveys your wishes for medical treatment in advance if you become mentally or physically unable to convey your wishes.

• Medical Power of Attorney: Designated person has authority to make any and all health care decisions in accordance with your wishes when you are no longer capable of making them yourself.

• Types of Health Care Settings: Non-profit & for-profit (proprietary) institutions, free standing ERs & urgent care centers, private practices & community healthcare centers, hospice care centers.

• Alternative Therapies: Treatments falling outside standard conventional medicine, such as Acupuncture, Herbal Medicine, and Magnetic Therapy.

Here is a complete practice quiz made strictly from your provided PowerPoint notes, organized into Fill-in-the-Blank, Definition Matching, and Short Answer questions.

✏️ Part 1: Fill-in-the-Blank

1. Ethics provides guidelines for ______________________.

2. ______________________ provides codes of ethics for health careers to govern their behavior and increase standards of care within the profession.

3. The health care worker maintains a high standard of ethical and legal behavior in their professional life as well as their ______________________.

4. You should not accept ______________________ or ______________________ gifts from your patients.

5. Avoid ______________________ with patients or staff members at the health care facility.

6. Refer questions a patient may have to the patient’s ______________________.

7. ______________________ is responsible for enforcing the ethical code!

🏷️ Part 2: Definition Matching

Match the term on the left to its correct description on the right based on the notes.

📝 Part 3: Short Answer & Lists

1. HIPAA & Confidentiality: List three examples of patient information that must be kept confidential.

2. Legal Exemptions: List four examples of healthcare information that are exempt from confidentiality by law.

3. Qualities: Define Accuracy, Honesty, and Dependability as described for a healthcare worker in the notes.

4. Legal Distinctions:

   • What is the difference between Civil Law and Criminal Law?

   • What is the difference between a Felony and a Misdemeanor?

5. Patient Care Procedures:

   • What is Informed Consent?

   • What does AMA stand for, and what does it mean?

   • What are two specific rules regarding physician orders and timeframes for Restraints?

6. Advance Directives:

   • What is an Advance Directive?

   • What is a Medical Power of Attorney?

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Part 1: Fill-in-the-Blank Key

1. acceptable behavior

2. Professional associations

3. private life

4. money or expensive (or just "gifts")

5. socializing / discussing personal problems

6. doctor

7. Every person

Part 2: Matching Key

1. D | 2. E | 3. F | 4. H | 5. B | 6. J | 7. K

2. A | 9. L | 10. M | 11. C | 12. N | 13. G | 14. I

Part 3: Short Answer Key

1. History, physical examination, or medical/dental procedures.

2. Births and deaths, emergencies, injuries caused by violence, child abuse, reportable STDs/communicable diseases, threats of serious bodily harm, vehicular accidents involving drugs/alcohol.

3. Accuracy: Following directions and reporting errors/accidents at once. Honesty: Never giving unqualified treatments, knowing limitations, being sincere and trustworthy. Dependability: Completing tasks, asking questions, and consulting supervisors when needed.

4. Civil vs. Criminal: Civil law focuses on legal relationships and protecting individual rights; Criminal law focuses on wrongs against a person, property, or society. Felony vs. Misdemeanor: A felony is a serious crime carrying >1 year in prison or death penalty; a misdemeanor is a lesser crime.

5. Informed Consent: A signed document stating the patient understands the procedure and risks involved. AMA: Against Medical Advice (leaving the hospital before being properly discharged). Restraints: Must be ordered by a physician (PRN orders not accepted) and applied/rechecked every 2 hours.

6. Advance Directive: A legal document conveying medical treatment wishes if mentally or physically incapacitated. Medical Power of Attorney: Designates a person with authority to make healthcare decisions when the patient is no longer capable.

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