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Eric Shinseki Case Summary

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Eric Shinseki was the Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs at the time that the investigation broke. Afterwards he chose to step down after the discovery was made that the EWL had led to deaths not just a long waiting list for appointments. As the Secretary of the VA, Shineski could at the very least prevent a scandal of such magnitude from happening. This falls on him as a leader primarily because he should have been the coordinator and illustration of what ethical decision making looks like for his entire department. As managers, sometimes we must step out of our office, out of the meetings and go out and see what is and isn’t being done correctly in our facilities. Mr. Shineski chose to resign rather than answer questions from investigators, …show more content…

Instead of resigning, as a leader he could have requested the investigation be postponed for 1 or 2 months so that he could conduct an internal investigation to find out how this tragedy happened. As the front-runner for the VA, he was put in command lead his employees in the correct direction and show them the need for cooperation in delivering quality services to the veterans. He had at least two alternatives to resigning; He could have conducted his own investigation attempting to recover the lost names. This was achievable by going to Phoenix and sitting with employees individually to try and figure out when EWL was created, and just how many veterans were on it, and how long they had indeed waited for an appointment. Or, the other alternative would have been to just participate in the OIG investigation and assume blame for the failure of his employees to follow the rules. When a leader, states that they failed, then employees will be more inclined to help that leader clear their names by providing the information that was required to help solve the investigation. When applying the ACHE Code of Ethics to the VA Health System, it obvious that Mr. Shineski and his administrators did not read the ACHE’s code of ethics. If they had, things in phoenix and another VA’s across America may have been

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