Reference no: EM133505963

Assignment:

After spending a month working with sick and dying Ebola patients in West Africa, Nurse Kaci Hickox returned to the United States. When she arrived in New Jersey, she was placed (imprisoned/her view) in a quarantine unit. In that she had never tested positive for the disease, she refused the quarantine and was released. Arriving in Maine officials there ordered her to stay at home and self-monitor for symptoms for the 21-day incubation period of the disease. She refused to remain at home and the next day went bike riding around the community with a friend. Because of her experience in Africa, Kaci knew that as long as she didn't exhibit symptoms she was not contagious and posed no danger to community health-but within the incubation period she was still a potential patient. Clearly she felt that the officials were overreacting, and that as a citizen she had a right to personal autonomy and self-determination.

(1) Does the fact that she was a nurse create an obligation for her to remain at home away from the community to reassure the public even if she believes there was little or no risk whatsoever of spreading the potentially fatal disease?

(2) Does it matter that she was on vacation and not performing nurse duties?

(3) Is this a case where personal values and professional obligations conflict?

(4) Are there times when the impact on the many (even if the possibility of harm is slight) outweighs the impact on the one?