No "Right" Answer

Hello again!  This week was full of ethical dilemmas!  Before you worry about my emotional state as I write this, I should mention that these were in the form of journal article reviews, and not personal problems, thankfully.  In my graduate course we were instructed to find current research on ethical topics and to post our reviews on the discussion board so that we could discuss them as a class.  Some of the topics that people chose were extremely interesting! 

I think the topic that hit closest to home for me was an article that examined the burnout rate of military healthcare providers.  I am not a military healthcare provider, but I do work at a substance abuse clinic on post where we are very short-staffed with counselors at the moment.  Unfortunately, our counselors are starting to feel the effects of burnout.  In this particular article, the correlation between leave days and an increased burnout rate were shown to have a direct relationship, with the more leave days that a person accrued, the higher the chance that they would reach burnout.  This makes sense to me because if a person does not ever take time off work to “recharge their batteries,” then how will they ever be able to function at 100%?  The military community in South Korea is very unique because of the rapid turnover rate for positions.  Many Soldiers are only stationed in Korea for one year, and then they are off to their new duty stations.  Civilians, like myself, are only allowed to stay for a maximum of five years before it is time to move to the next place.  It sometimes takes months, even a year, to fill a civilian position because of the specifications that have to be met in order to fill the positions.  This results in positions sitting vacant for excessive periods of time, and burnout can (and does) occur because others are trying to pick up the slack.  The ethical dilemma that arises out of this is that healthcare providers, while providing for others, need to take care of themselves—but at what cost?  Should they be forced to use up their vacation days (“use or lose”), even though they feel that they are neglecting patient care while they are gone?  Or should they take vacation, and try not to worry what will happen to their patients while they are away?  It creates an ethical dilemma, for sure, and it is one that is not easily solved.

Another extremely interesting topic from the article reviews this week focused on the ethics of torture in the War on Terrorism.  The questions remains: is torture ever morally justified?  We could go a step further and ask: is killing ever morally justified?  These questions are not easily answerable—at least not for me.  I believe that most things are situational, and I would have to know the absolute specifics to even speculate on my answers to those questions; nevertheless, they would be ethical dilemmas, indeed!

I watched a TED Talk video this week that involved animals and morality, and I found it incredibly interesting and enlightening.  I encourage everyone reading this post to watch it, as well.  It can be found here: http://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_morals?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button__2015-01-12.  There were many aspects that I found to be enlightening, but the most noteworthy was Frans de Waal’s notion of the two morality pillars.  He mentioned that reciprocity and fairness were underneath one pillar, and empathy and compassion were under the other.  While I am unsure if morality is truly founded with these two pillars, it definitely made me stop for a minute and evaluate my current notion of how society operates.

While I have never seen the entire movie of “Beetlejuice,” I did watch a clip this week that showed the afterlife, and strangely enough, it displayed public administration NOT at its finest!  I am shocked at the fact that in the movie, it was people who committed suicide who were sentenced to fulfill disgruntled public administrator’s roles for all of eternity.  What a way to inaccurately portray public administrators!  I like to believe that the majority of public administrators are in their positions because they have a passion for making the world a better place.  Maybe I am looking through a pair of rose-colored glasses, but I cannot help but feel that way.  It really is a sad fact that there can be a hundred people doing the “right” thing and trying to improve policies and programs for people, but it only takes one person to undo that all.  That one person then becomes the face of the field, and as a result, public administrators get a poor reputation.  So, how can we overcome this?  I think that one way that we can try is to be diligent in spreading the “good” news and our success stories.  I realize that scandals and human error makes for exciting entertainment; however, it is really taking a toll on the way that public administrators are perceived. 

Well, I would like to thank you for visiting my blog!  I hope your week was not riddled with ethical dilemmas, but in the chance that it was (or perhaps you just read about them like I did), please feel free to share them on the comments below!  Thank you!