ABSTRACT
Mrs. Chu is an 8s-year-old citizen of the People’s Republic of China who has recently come to live in the United States with her adult children, both immigrants. She has some limited ability to understand English. Mrs. Chu has experienced some health problems and is being cared for at home by her family. She has now been brought to a hospital for tests. The children understand that doctors have definitively diagnosed Mrs. Chu’s medical condition as cancer, but the family are adamantly opposed to telling Mrs. Chu right away. It would be disrespectful to talk about death to her this way, they say. Instead, they tell hospital authorities they have their own approach to dealing with these matters, an approach that includes traditional Chinese herbal remedies.
Do we come up with different solutions to ethical problems depending on apersonas ethnic or cultural background?
