Patient’s addiction
Hello Michelle,
Thank you for your post. According to American Medical Associations (AMA) futility occurs when there is an action aimed at achieving the goal and there is a virtual certainty that action will fail (Insa Gómez, & Requena Meana, 2017).In this case, there is no behavior may contribute to the failure of the procedure, but there is no virtual certainty the procedure will fail which suggest that the team was against the ethical codes provided by making a judgment about not replacing the valve. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the healthcare providers to provide the available resources to help manage the patient addiction as part of the recovery process which in this case is what the patient required. Failure to replace the valve would cost the patients more because it is likely that the patient could suffer from heart failure, strokes, PE, kidney failure and other serious complications or even death thus need for the caregivers to fulfil the principle of beneficence and respect to the patient to face the challenge that may arise. I agree with your argument that drug users are considered as a vulnerable population for any research study so in this case, it is that responsibly of the caregiver to ensure informed consent to the patient to include him as a participant in the study.
Insa Gómez, F. J., & Requena Meana, P. (2017). Is Medical Futility an Ethical or Clinical Concept?. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, 17(2), 261-273.