Human Resources Essays Examples

Interoffice Memo

interoffice memorandum
Background. Prosenjit Poddar, an Indian student at the University of California, had begun to data a fellow student, Tatiana Tarasoff. When she rebuffed him, he felt betrayed and depressed. He went into a depression and revealed to his psychologist, Dr Moore, his intention to shoot Tatiana. Dr Moore referred the case to the campus police, who interviewed him but did not press charges. The Health Service Psychiatrist, who later returned from vacation, directed all notes on the case be destroyed. Poddar later went ahead and shot and stabbed Tatiana to death. Tatiana’s parents sued the campus police, the health service employees and the Regents of the University of California for failing to warn their daughter of the danger to her life. The trail court dismissed the case, as before Tarasoff, a doctor had a duty to a patient and not to a third party. The Appeals Court upheld the dismissal, but the Supreme Court decreed that a therapist bears a duty to use ‘reasonable care’ to give threatened persons such warnings to avert danger arising from a patient’s condition (Francis, 2011).
Judgment. Upon an uproar to its judgment from the police and psychiatrists, the California Supreme Court re-heard the case and decreed that when a therapist determines that his patient poses a serious danger to a third party, he has an obligation to use ‘reasonable care’ to protect the intended victim against such danger. He may do so by warning the intended victim, notifying the police or taking any necessary steps under the circumstances’ (Francis, 2011).
Ethical Bind for Human Service Professionals. The Tarasoff case has put human service professionals into an ethical bind. Earlier, their responsibility lay only to patients. Post Tarasoff, it extends to third parties. If human service professionals become vigilantes for third parties, they stand to lose their patients’ trust and patients may stop coming to them, defeating the very purpose of their profession.
Impact on Human Service Code of Conduct. While the ethical dilemma remains, the Tarasoff Case was instrumental in amending the human service code of ethics. Standard 4 of the ethical standards adopted by the National Organization for Human Services clearly advocates that ‘if it is suspected that danger or harm may occur to the client or to others the human service professional is to act suitably to protect the safety of the individuals’ (National Organization for Human Services, 2015).

References

National Organization for Human Services. (2015). Ethical standards for human service professionals. Retrieved March 23, 2015, from http://www.nationalhumanservices.org/ethical-standards-for-hs-professionals
Francis, T. (2011). Tarasoff in a nutshell. Retrieved March 23, 2015, from http://boards.medscape.com/forums/?128@@.2a0e74e6!comment=1