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Managing conflicting ethical concerns in modern small animal practice—A comparative study of veterinarian’s decision ethics in Austria, Denmark and the UK
Small animal veterinarians frequently have to manage conflicting interests. Beside the key consideration of the patient’s interests, small animal veterinarians are often challenged to consider not only client’s emotional needs, but also their own personal aspirations to provide quality patient care...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8213188/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34143850 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253420 |
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author | Springer, Svenja Sandøe, Peter Grimm, Herwig Corr, Sandra A. Kristensen, Annemarie T. Lund, Thomas Bøker |
author_facet | Springer, Svenja Sandøe, Peter Grimm, Herwig Corr, Sandra A. Kristensen, Annemarie T. Lund, Thomas Bøker |
author_sort | Springer, Svenja |
collection | PubMed |
description | Small animal veterinarians frequently have to manage conflicting interests. Beside the key consideration of the patient’s interests, small animal veterinarians are often challenged to consider not only client’s emotional needs, but also their own personal aspirations to provide quality patient care and to make a good living as a professional. Further, veterinarians have an interest in continuous professional development and the use of the newest treatments, which may influence their decision-making process. Based on published work, we hypothesize the existence of four decision ethics orientations that veterinarians can use to manage potentially conflicting concerns. These are: the patient-focused, the client-empathetic, the client-devolved and the development-oriented decision ethics orientations. We surveyed small animal veterinarians in Austria, Denmark, and the UK using a questionnaire (N = 648), and successfully identified the four decision ethics orientations in all three countries. The patient-focused and client-empathetic decision ethics orientations are salient in all countries, whereas Danish and UK veterinarians are slightly more client-empathetic and client-devolved compared to their Austrian colleagues. Across countries our findings show that experienced and older veterinarians tend to be more client-empathetic. Younger and less experienced professionals are more development-oriented compared to their older and more experienced colleagues. In contrast to other studies investigating ethical issues in small animal practice, we found no evidence that gender plays a decisive role in the tendency towards any decision ethics orientation. We also show that veterinarians with a higher client-empathetic orientation and development-orientation more often discuss the possibility of health insurance with clients who do not have it. The present study provides a first empirical insight into how veterinarians manage challenging expectations and ethical concerns as part of decision making in modern small animal practice. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8213188 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-82131882021-06-29 Managing conflicting ethical concerns in modern small animal practice—A comparative study of veterinarian’s decision ethics in Austria, Denmark and the UK Springer, Svenja Sandøe, Peter Grimm, Herwig Corr, Sandra A. Kristensen, Annemarie T. Lund, Thomas Bøker PLoS One Research Article Small animal veterinarians frequently have to manage conflicting interests. Beside the key consideration of the patient’s interests, small animal veterinarians are often challenged to consider not only client’s emotional needs, but also their own personal aspirations to provide quality patient care and to make a good living as a professional. Further, veterinarians have an interest in continuous professional development and the use of the newest treatments, which may influence their decision-making process. Based on published work, we hypothesize the existence of four decision ethics orientations that veterinarians can use to manage potentially conflicting concerns. These are: the patient-focused, the client-empathetic, the client-devolved and the development-oriented decision ethics orientations. We surveyed small animal veterinarians in Austria, Denmark, and the UK using a questionnaire (N = 648), and successfully identified the four decision ethics orientations in all three countries. The patient-focused and client-empathetic decision ethics orientations are salient in all countries, whereas Danish and UK veterinarians are slightly more client-empathetic and client-devolved compared to their Austrian colleagues. Across countries our findings show that experienced and older veterinarians tend to be more client-empathetic. Younger and less experienced professionals are more development-oriented compared to their older and more experienced colleagues. In contrast to other studies investigating ethical issues in small animal practice, we found no evidence that gender plays a decisive role in the tendency towards any decision ethics orientation. We also show that veterinarians with a higher client-empathetic orientation and development-orientation more often discuss the possibility of health insurance with clients who do not have it. The present study provides a first empirical insight into how veterinarians manage challenging expectations and ethical concerns as part of decision making in modern small animal practice. Public Library of Science 2021-06-18 /pmc/articles/PMC8213188/ /pubmed/34143850 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253420 Text en © 2021 Springer et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Springer, Svenja Sandøe, Peter Grimm, Herwig Corr, Sandra A. Kristensen, Annemarie T. Lund, Thomas Bøker Managing conflicting ethical concerns in modern small animal practice—A comparative study of veterinarian’s decision ethics in Austria, Denmark and the UK |
title | Managing conflicting ethical concerns in modern small animal practice—A comparative study of veterinarian’s decision ethics in Austria, Denmark and the UK |
title_full | Managing conflicting ethical concerns in modern small animal practice—A comparative study of veterinarian’s decision ethics in Austria, Denmark and the UK |
title_fullStr | Managing conflicting ethical concerns in modern small animal practice—A comparative study of veterinarian’s decision ethics in Austria, Denmark and the UK |
title_full_unstemmed | Managing conflicting ethical concerns in modern small animal practice—A comparative study of veterinarian’s decision ethics in Austria, Denmark and the UK |
title_short | Managing conflicting ethical concerns in modern small animal practice—A comparative study of veterinarian’s decision ethics in Austria, Denmark and the UK |
title_sort | managing conflicting ethical concerns in modern small animal practice—a comparative study of veterinarian’s decision ethics in austria, denmark and the uk |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8213188/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34143850 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253420 |
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