Reference no: EM132185359

What are the ethical considerations and critical dimensions for the below case? Key moral and spiritual issues.

Jessica is a 28-year old Hispanic married female. She has a very demanding high stress job as a second year medical resident on the Intensive Care Unit in a large hospital. She has always been a high achiever, and graduate top honors in both college and medical school. She has very high standards for herself and can be extremely self critical when she fails to meet them. Lately, she has struggled with significant feelings of worthlessness and shame due to her inability to perform as well as she always has in the past.

For the past few weeks, she has felt unusually fatigued and found it increasingly difficult to concentrate at work, Her coworkers have noticed that she is often irritable and withdraws, which is quite different from her typical upbeat and friendly disposition. She has called in sick on several occasions, which is completely unlike her. On those days she stays in bed all day, watching tv or sleeping.

At home, her husband has noticed changes as well. She's shown little interest in sex and has had difficulties falling asleep at night. Her insomnia has been keeping her up at night, tossing and turning for an hour or two after they go to bed. He's overheard her having frequent tearful phone conversations with a close friend. When he tries to get her to open up about what is bothering her, she avoids his questions by irritably replying "everything is fine."

Although she has not ever considered suicide, she has found herself increasingly dissatisfied with her life. She has been having frequent thoughts of just "not wanting to wake up in the morning." Furthermore, she gets frustrated with herself because she feels like she has every reason to be happy, but she cannot seem to shake the feeling of "having a gray cloud over her head." She wonders if she will ever feel like her old self.

When asked when she first began feeling like she had a "gray cloud over her head" she stated that the feeling started after she lost one of her patients whom she was sure would make a full recovery. She reported that this is not the first patient that she has lost and acted surprised by her emotional reaction. She has found it very difficult to talk with her husband about the situation, hence the long tearful conversations with her friend.

She reports that she has always had a strong faith in God and has attended the Seventh Day Adventist church throughout her life but even God feels distant during this time