Introduction Patient was a 34 year old female admitted to the hospital for observation as an EMU patient on the Neuro step down unit. Patient reported that she had a tonic clonic seizure before coming to the hospital. During the three days she was in the hospital, she showed no apparent seizure activity. The nurse who was also assigned to this patient said she was pretty sure she was a pseudo seizure patient. When it came to looking at what drugs she could be given, the only drug she was not allergic to was Morphine. When doing assessments on the patient, she would always say that her pain was an 8-9 before pain medication and a 7/10 after pain medication. Every 4 hours the patient would put her call light on and complain of pain. However, the patient showed no signs of pain as she was doing her hair and putting on makeup to look good for her boyfriend who was coming to see her soon. With the patient requesting pain medications frequently, showing no apparent signs of pain or seizure activity and allergic to every type of medication makes me suspicious of the patient drug seeking. So the ethical dilemma is should the patient be given pain medication when they requests it every 4 hrs, when not appearing to be in pain?
The three options that I was alternating between were medicating the patient as ordered when they request it, give the patient half the dose ordered when they request it, or delay the patient’s dose to every 6 hours or not give it at all. The moral principles involved are autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence and accountability. Medicating the patient when they request it would be upholding to the principle of autonomy. Beneficence is an action done for the benefit of the patient. Administering pain medication upon request may be promoting good for the patient, as we want the patient to be pain free, which in return allows the body to have the