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Ethical Case Reflection

The central ethical issue was whether a physical therapist should accept a friend request on Facebook from a former patient. The therapist felt uncomfortable with the patient at times during treatment. The therapist is friends with some former patients through shared interests like golfing. The group decided not to accept the request to avoid potential future ethical issues, and the therapist would explain the decision to the patient. The group's decision matched the individual's choice based on virtue ethics theory.

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68 views2 pages

Ethical Case Reflection

The central ethical issue was whether a physical therapist should accept a friend request on Facebook from a former patient. The therapist felt uncomfortable with the patient at times during treatment. The therapist is friends with some former patients through shared interests like golfing. The group decided not to accept the request to avoid potential future ethical issues, and the therapist would explain the decision to the patient. The group's decision matched the individual's choice based on virtue ethics theory.

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Nick Duke

Ethics Case Reflection

1. What was the central ethical issue you encountered in this case?

The central ethical issue that my group encountered in this case was to accept a Facebook friend
request from a patient after discharging the patient. Some of the important facts around this issue
were that the patient had made the therapist feel uncomfortable at times while treating him, the
therapist is Facebook friends with a few former patients, and that the current patient has emailed
and called the therapist about accepting the friend request. Those three facts were the main ones I
thought about when making the decision about the central issue.

2. How would you resolve this ethical issue? Do you agree with the theorist you used as a
reference for solving this case?

I would resolve this ethical issue by not accepting the friend request, but making sure the patient
knows why the request was not accepted. The theorist I used as a main reference for solving this
case was Aristotle. His theory of virtue ethics was what I mainly relied on. Virtue ethics is the
idea that something can be right in one situation and wrong in another, and it is up to the
individual to determine right versus wrong. I agree with this because I don’t think it would be
right for the therapist to accept a friend request from someone who has made him feel
uncomfortable in the past as well as not to lead on a former patient that he might have more of a
friend than what is actually there. I think this also speaks to the fact that is it okay for the
therapist to be friends with a few of his other former patients because they all share common
interests and are with each other due to golfing and skiing.

3. Did the group’s choice differ from yours? If you were the only person involved what
would you have decided to do (vs. what the group decided)?

The groups choice ended up being the same as my decision. There was some debate about what
would happen if the therapist would accept the friend request. We debated about how he could
just accept the request and then not worry about anything else, but some of the other details from
the case led us to believe that the patient would potentially continue to reach out if they became
Facebook friends and then the therapist would be in another ethical dilemma. We also decided
that we would call the patient and explain why we would not accept the friend request so the
patient would not lose confidence or feel betrayed in any way.

4. What still confuses you about this case?

I am not confused about the specific decision-making process, or how I arrived at my decision
with this case, but I am a little confused, or would like to understand more, about the patient and
his mental health history. The therapist is unsure if the patient has seen a mental health specialist
or seen anyone about his mental health. I am curious if that is a topic that the therapist should
have tried to address with the patient or if asking about that is outside the scope of PT and
therapists should focus on the musculoskeletal rehabilitation and not allow any of the other
issues affect the care or potentially affect the care the therapist gives.

5. What did you learn about yourself from participating in this assignment and how can you
apply this when you get to clinic?

I think something I learned about myself with this assignment is that there are many different
ways to think about situations and many different solutions to the same problem. There are times
when I get stuck in my way of thinking and have a tendency to shut down other thoughts because
I think my way is right, but in reality, it is possible to have many different right answers to the
same question. PT school up to this point and this assignment has helped me to realize that. In
the clinic this will help me to be opened minded about trying new techniques for therapies or be
able to discuss different scenarios with co-workers and try to understand their perspectives. It
can also help me handle a potential scenario where a patient wants to be friends with me on
social media as well because it is something that I have already thought about.

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