Ethics dilemmas in the work place are the most difficult as the ethical awareness to do what is right often conflicts with an individual's desire to maintain their employment in order to provide for themselves and their family. The ability to do what is right requires courage and a personal commitment to ethical behavior, practice, and action despite personal risk. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the standards and codes of American Psychological Association (APA) code of ethics and HIPAA laws in case scenario, examine the ethical reasoning models, and assess the multicultural issues in the case scenario.
APA and HIPAA: Standards and Codes The observer a new employee sitting in the employee lounge …show more content…
Deontology with its adherence to obligation applies a universal principle to all situations regardless of relationships, context, or consequence offers the best guidance for this case scenario (Fisher, 2013). While ethical theories such as feminism, communitarianism, and utilitarianism weigh significance of relationships and attention to power dynamics, or community goals, values, and cooperative virtues, or risk-benefit calculations, respectively, these theories can lead to silence or inaction as this theories can ignore universal or individual rights in favor of relationships, different populations have different definitions of ethical appropriateness, or what produces the greater good or the consequences of actions (Coughlan, 2005; Fisher, 2013; Haverkamp, 2005). For example, although the case scenario takes place in a public space the observer is the only witness to ethical violations, as new employee the consequence to her career and the practice may outweigh the benefits of filing a sexual harassment complaint or reporting the violation of test security or disclosure laws. However, deontology ignores personal or organizational consequences in favor of absolutist or universal principles to do what is right regardless. In this case, Jim and Sara are clearly in violation of multiple APA codes and HIPAA laws; and it is the duty of the new employee to act by reporting to the privacy officer or office manager the HIPAA violations and the APA ethics committee (Coughlan, 2005; Fisher, 2013; Sternberg,