Breach of Contract and Informed Consent Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Breach of Contract and Informed Consent - Essay Example ding to the facts of the case, Harvey suffered from carotid artery blockage and while his doctor recommended a surgical procedure, Harvey signed a consent form that restricted use of blood or blood products on his body. He acknowledged potential health risks to his condition. He confirmed this in another agreement a day before the surgery. The surgery appears successful until a blood clot was realized and he suffered a stroke. His mother, who was also listed as the next of kin, then offered consent for subsequent operations and procedures, some of which involved blood transfusion because Harvey lost lots of blood and was at risk of heart attack and death. Harvey later recovered and sued. One of the principles that guide the case is existence of a contract and its terms, and an agreement between Harvey and the doctor prior to the initial surgery identifies this. Consequently, any surgical procedures ought to have been conducted within the terms of the agreement. The agreement was further based on the patient’s informed consent as he acknowledged possible consequences on his decisions on the surgical procedure. This is because the initial agreement that existed in writing identified â€Å"disclosure,† â€Å"comprehension,† â€Å"voluntariness,† â€Å"competence,† and â€Å"consent† (Kennedy, 2008, p. 83). The informed consent was further consistent with statute law on autonomy and informed consent that grants a patient right to information and allows a patient to refuse treatment (Rutgers, n.d.), and case law as was argued in the case of Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospital, as the patient reserved the right applicatio ns in the surgical procedures (Albert, 2000). There are however exceptions to the doctrine of informed consent that are applicable to the case and undermine Harvey’s chances of winning. Emergency is an example and defines need for an immediate action with the aim of preserving a patient’s life. This means that delays in a surgical action can

Evolution Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Evolution - Term Paper Example This is unlike many treatments of evolution where readers are often confused as a result of being conflated with different definitions of the term. The decision to divide â€Å"Darwinism† into six components makes the understanding of various concepts easy (Coyne, 2009). It is indeed true that, over time, allele rate of recurrence change in an inhabitants. It is also true that different organisms have occupied the earth at different times. The critical role of natural selection is in this is also an undisputed fact. Common ancestry is received positively by a majority within the scientific field (Coyne, 2009). My reflection on common descent is that while it is a defensible position, it is not as much supported as it is made out. Consequently, the points of concern in this chapter, in my view, include the extent to which gradualism is true and the sufficiency of natural selection. The second chapter of the book is ‘written in the rocks.’ It uses fossil evidence to justify common descent. It is indeed true that fossil records show a tendency where simpler organisms precede more complex ones. This is also exactly what one would anticipate as a result of a common origin (Coyne, 2009). A feature that would be absent in Darwin’s theory, but would be the noticeable pattern of morphological difference preceding diversity (Coyne, 2009). In my view, an interesting aspect of the fossil record is that, unlike Darwin’s theory, it ranks the higher taxonomic categories first and, consequently makes them appear first in the taxonomic ranking. There are three main evolutionary transition trends specified by the fossil record i.e. fish to amphibians evolution, reptiles to birds and whales to terrestrial mammals evolution (Coyne, 2009). Accordingly, there are three important insights that emerge from the fossil record. Firstly is that the fossil spells out the evolution process (Coyne, 2009). The records within rocks provide a great deal of