Measles Making A Comeback
Case Study
Piper Banks is the medical director for Open Arms, a non-profit medical clinic and wellness center serving low-income patients in an urban neighborhood. On most days, Piper loves her job and the work her clinic is able to do for people in the community, but lately there has been a problem that is beyond frustrating. This past summer, the city experienced a significant measles outbreak. Thousands of people were exposed to the measles and 78 cases were confirmed. Of the 78 cases, 73 involved unvaccinated children in the city’s East African immigrant community.
What Piper finds most troubling is not that the “herd immunity” was compromised, though that does trouble her. Worse, in her opinion, was the fact that members of the anti vaccination community were distributing fliers and talking to families in the affected community. The anti vax activists reportedly told people that the measles outbreak had been created by the government in order to pressure immigrant parents to vaccinate their children. One of Open Arms’ primary goals has been to counter the fear and misinformation that anti vaccine groups have been spreading in the community for nearly a decade. That misinformation specifically promotes the purported vaccine autism link, despite extensive research disproving those claims. This is troubling, because there is a high incidence of autism within the community and parents are justifiably concerned.
Despite her frustration, Piper hasn’t given up hope. Religious leaders and trusted health care providers in the community have been enlisted by clinic staff members to convince parents to protect their children by getting the measles mumps rubella vaccine.
At a staff meeting, Piper asks for insights to the situation. Felicia Cruz, the clinic pediatrician, expresses optimism about the situation. “Since the measles outbreak, I’ve seen several parents who’ve refused to inoculate their children come in,” she says. “They’re still nervous — very nervous, in fact — but they’re more open to believing us than I’ve ever seen.”
Nasra, an intern at the clinic who is working toward a master’s degree in public health, adds “I was recently talking with a woman who said that the imam at her mosque has been very blunt. He said If you care about your child, you must vaccinate. I think it’s important to make sure parents know how devastating these diseases are. I heard that the anti vaxers were trying to set up measles parties to deliberately expose unvaccinated children to children with measles. We need to explain to these parents that they are playing with fire.”
“I wonder how many parents would make different choices if they could actually see the effects of these diseases” says Emily, a clinic nurse. “People have forgotten how devastating these diseases used to be. They think that if they feed their children a nutritious diet, then these vaccine–preventable diseases will be mild. Sometimes I wish I could take them to the cemetery and show them all the little headstones from when we didn’t have vaccines.”
Piper is encouraged by these comments, and by the fact that the clinic has been administering almost twice as many vaccines since the measles outbreak as they had the previous year. Still, she worries about how to counter the information being spread by the anti vaccination activists and respond in an ethical way to parents who don’t want to vaccinate their children.
Instructions
Note: The requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. At a minimum, be sure to address each point. In addition, you are encouraged to review the performance level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.
For this assessment, you will develop a solution to a specific ethical dilemma faced by a health care professional. In your assessment:
1 Access the Ethical Case Studies | Transcript media piece to review the case studies you may use for this assessment.
1 Select the case most closely related to your area of interest and use it to complete the assessment.
2 Note: The case study may not supply all of the information you need. In such cases, you should consider a variety of possibilities and infer potential conclusions. However, please be sure to identify any assumptions or speculations you make.
2 Identify which case study you selected and briefly summarize the facts surrounding it. Identify the problem or issue that presents an ethical dilemma or challenge and describe that dilemma or challenge.
3 Access the Ethical Decision-Making Model | Transcript media piece and use the three components of the ethical decision-making model (moral awareness, moral judgment, and ethical behavior) to analyze the ethical issues.
4 Analyze the factors that contributed to the problem or issue.
1 Identify who is involved or affected by the problem or issue.
2 Describe the factors that contributed to the problem or issue and explain how they contributed.
5 In addition to the readings provided, use the Capella library to locate at least one academic peer-reviewed journal article relevant to the problem or issue that you can use to support your analysis of the situation.
• Cite and apply the journal article as evidence to support your critical thinking and analysis of the case.
• Assess the credibility of the information source.
• Assess the relevance of the information source.
6 Discuss the effectiveness of the communication approaches present in the case study.
1 Describe how the health care professional communicated with others.
2 Describe the communication and communication strategies that were applied, both in creating and in resolving the problems or issues presented.
3 Assess instances where the professional communicated effectively or ineffectively.
7 Discuss the effectiveness of the approach used by the professional related to any problems or issues involving ethical practice in the case.
1 Describe the actions taken in response to the ethical dilemma or challenge presented in the case study.
2 Summarize how well the professional managed professional responsibilities and priorities to resolve the problem or issue in the case.
3 Discuss the key lessons this case provides for health care professionals.
8 Apply ethical principles to a possible solution to the proposed problem or issue from the case study.
1 Describe the proposed solution.
2 Discuss how the approach makes this professional more effective or less effective in building relationships across disciplines within his or her organization.
3 Discuss how likely it is the proposed solution will foster professional collaboration.
9 Write clearly and logically, with correct use of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.
1 Determine the proper application of the rules of grammar and mechanics.
10 Write using APA style for in-text citations, quotes, and references.
1 Determine the proper application of APA formatting requirements and scholarly writing standards.
2 Apply the principles of effective composition.
3 Integrate information from outside sources into academic writing by appropriately quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing, following APA style.
Example Assessment: You may use the following to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like:
• Assessment 1 Example [PDF].
Additional Requirements
1 Length: At least 3–5 typed, double-spaced pages, not including the title page and reference page.
2 Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 point.
3 APA Template: Use the APA Style Paper Template [DOCX] as the paper format and use the APA Style Paper Tutorial [DOCX] for guidance.
4 Written communication: Use correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
5 References: Integrate information from outside sources to include at least two references (the case study and an academic peer-reviewed journal article) and three in-text citations within the paper.
6 APA format: Follow current APA guidelines for in-text citation of outside sources in the body of your paper and also on the reference page.
