Please help with the following Emergency Room scenario, and please provide any references so I can view how you came to your decisions. Thank you!

Please help with the following Emergency Room scenario, and please provide any references so I can view how you came to your decisions. Thank you!

An ambulance has a patient, Mark, 24 years old, going to the hospital for acute abdominal pain. The eta is 2 minutes.

The triage treating doctor Adams sent Mark for a CT and diagnosed Mark with an abdominal aortic aneurysm and recommended surgery to fix the issue. It can be life-threatening, with 90% of fatality without surgery. Mark is concerned about the surgery because he is a model and afraid it will leave a scare that would negatively affect his work; he refuses surgery. Dr. Adams informs the patient that time is of the essence, and if it were to burst, he would die in just a few short minutes.

Mark admittedly refuses. Dr. Adams consults with a colleague about the results of the ct scan, and both agree that surgery is essential.

Dr Adams returned to Mark to inform him of the second opinion, and that surgery was needed. She finds Mark struggling to stay conscience, and he becomes unresponsive. The colleague comes to help Dr. Adams.

The doctors decide to perform surgery without Mark’s consent

they give him anesthesia and successfully completes the surgery to fix the abdominal aortic aneurysm. Mark survives, recovers from the surgery, then files a lawsuit against the hospital for 10 million dollars.

• Did the physicians protect the patient? How?
• What are the moral and ethical issues in this case?
• Do you believe that the physicians’ actions can be justified in any way?
• Is there anything else that they could have done?