Paramedic Care: Principles & Practice, 4th edition
Bledsoe/ Porter/ Cherry
Volume 1 Introduction to Paramedicine
Chapter 8 Ethics in Paramedicine
1) State laws requiring the reporting of births, deaths, certain infectious diseases, and child and
elder abuse and neglect may require the paramedic to breach the obligation to protect the
patient’s:
A) Right to self-determination
B) First Amendment rights
C) Confidentiality
D) Autonomy
2) The four fundamental principles or values used to resolve problems in bioethics today include
all of the following EXCEPT:
A) Beneficence
B) Maleficence
C) Autonomy
D) Egalitarianism
3) The obligation of a paramedic to treat all patients fairly is an example of the principle of:
A) Beneficence
B) Democracy
C) Sovereignty
D) Justice
4) Your paramedic partner is telling you about a situation in which he resuscitated a patient with
a DNR, even though the DNR was present and available to him at the time he began
resuscitation. He tells you he is justified because the patient survived for a year after the incident
and suffered no ill effects from the cardiac arrest or the resuscitation efforts. Which of the
following best describes the ethical approach used by your partner?
A) Deontologicalism
B) Consequentialism
C) Ethical relativism
D) Self-determination
5) The idea that each person must decide how to behave and that whatever decision that person
makes is acceptable is known as:
A) Consequentialism
B) The deontological method
C) Ethical relativism
D) Moral positivism
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6) When analyzing an ethical problem, the method in which you ask whether you would want an
action performed in all relevantly similar circumstances is known as the:
A) Impartiality test
B) Interpersonal justifiability test
C) Universalizability test
D) Rationalization test
7) The most common situations involving allocation of scarce resources that paramedics will
usually face are those involving:
A) Administering expensive medications
B) Deciding whether to terminate resuscitative efforts
C) Triage in mass-casualty incidents
D) Transporting patients to high-quality versus low-quality hospitals
8) When analyzing an ethical problem, the method in which you ask yourself whether you can
vindicate your actions to others is known as the:
A) Interpersonal justifiability test
B) Rationalization test
C) Impartiality test
D) Universalizability test
9) If you receive a copy of a valid DNR order after you have begun resuscitation attempts, you
are ethically obligated to:
A) Cease resuscitation efforts
B) Check the patient’s breathing and pulse before ceasing resuscitation efforts
C) Continue resuscitation until ordered to stop by medical direction
D) Continue resuscitation attempts until the patient is transported to an emergency department
10) Enforced racial segregation in the United States before the 1960s can best be described as:
A) Illegal but ethical
B) Legal but unethical
C) Illegal and unethical
D) Legal and ethical
11) Rules or standards that govern the conduct of members of a particular group or profession
are called:
A) Regulations
B) Ethics
C) Morals
D) Statutes
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12) You are on the scene where an 80-year-old female is unresponsive and has shallow, snoring
respirations. The patient’s husband wants you to do nothing for the patient, but her daughter is
crying and pleading with you to do something to help her mother. The patient lacks a DNR. The
husband insists that his wife would not want to be “kept alive by machines.” Which of the
following is the best course of action ethically?
A) Follow the husband’s wishes, because he has the legal authority to make the decision while
the daughter does not.
B) Explain to the husband that you do not yet know what is wrong with his wife, that it may be
something readily treatable, and that without a written order from her physician you cannot
withhold treatment.
C) Consider how you would feel if it was your spouse or parent, and ask yourself what you
would want done.
D) Find out more about the patient’s medical history in an attempt to determine if resuscitative
measures would be futile.
13) Social, religious, or personal standards of right and wrong are called:
A) Morals
B) Culture
C) Common laws
D) Ethics
14) When analyzing an ethical problem, the method in which you ask yourself whether you
would be willing to undergo a procedure or action if you were in the patient’s place is known as
the:
A) Universalizability test
B) Rationalization test
C) Impartiality test
D) Interpersonal justifiability test
15) Which of the following questions should guide the paramedic in ethical decision making?
A) “Have I consulted with medical direction?”
B) “What legal liability will I face as a result of this action?”
C) “What is in the patient’s best interest?”
D) “What do the system protocols say?”
16) Your patient is a 49-year-old woman with terminal cancer. She has a DNR order, but her
family has called 911 because the patient is having difficulty breathing and seems to be very
uncomfortable. Making the patient as comfortable as possible demonstrates the ethical principle
of:
A) Beneficence
B) Autonomy
C) Justice
D) Malfeasence
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17) When students are working with patients under a preceptor in an EMS system, at what point
should the preceptor inform the patients that their care, or part of it, is being performed by a
student?
A) This information should not be revealed to the patient.
B) The patient should be informed after the procedure but only if there are no complications
from the procedure.
C) The patient should be informed if he asks what the caregiver’s qualifications are.
D) The patient should be informed before procedures are performed, and the student should be
allowed to proceed only with the patient’s consent.
18) The right of competent people to determine what happens to their bodies is one example of
the principle of:
A) Autonomy
B) Libertarianism
C) Democracy
D) Agency
19) You are driving home late one night from a state-to-state interhospital transport. You are still
in the other state driving home at 0200 hours when you come upon a single-vehicle MVC on a
deserted stretch of the highway. You stop your ambulance, and you and your partner assess the
scene and find out there is only one occupant of the vehicle and that the victim is unresponsive.
If you initiate care and transport the patient to a hospital without summoning local EMS or fire,
your actions could be considered:
A) Illegal
B) Unethical
C) Inappropriate
D) Unnecessary
20) Failure to stop and render assistance could be perceived by the patient’s family or other EMS
providers as being:
A) Illegal
B) Unethical
C) Appropriate
D) Unnecessary
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