Hi, for one of my essays on ethics, we were given a scenario where a midwife came in to a delivery room to catch a baby, and as is 'common pratice' she saw tray with a drawn up syring of syntometrine, which she administered to the woman with the delivery of the anterior shoulder. Afterwards, she took the woman's blood pressure and it was 160/98. She checked the woman's antenatal records and noted that the woman had a history of raised blood pressure. After half an hour she rechecks the blood pressure which has settled to 136/85. The woman is transferred to the postnatal ward and there are no further complications. The midwife does not report the drug error. Discuss.
I used utilitarian and deontological theories to discuss and also the core medical ethics theories. The main thing I talked about here was whether it would have been ethical for the midwife to confess her error to the woman, as potentially she could have caused her blood pressure to increase and cause serious problems. And as nothing happened, would she be causing undue worry and distress to the woman who might have had a lovely birth experience up until that point? Mind you, probably not enough to talk about for 1500 words because I also had to discuss cultural and legal issues.

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3rd year Student Midwife