The thesis of this chapter states that in certain situations, it is crucial to listen to a medical professional, however, in others, it is very important to listen to yourself and also to do what you feel is right. The author of Complications," Atul Gawane, has written this specific chapter to persuade the reader of his thesis. If the choice you make is incorrect, then it could potentially be a matter of life and death.
Better by Atul Gawande, one aspect that caught my attention that makes me want to do something better in my work setting is patient negligent. When you negligent something, although you may not notice it, it is still consider negligent. When Atul spoke about Peter doctor not noticing a tumor in his x-ray, and later Peter development lymphoma (Gawande, 2007), that is consider negligent. Working at an Adult Day Health center, there are many situations that you hear from clients telling one another how they are unhappy about their kids treating them or simply not getting along with his/her kids. Hearing these stories, it is hard not wanting to do something about it. However, since I’m hearing it and not directly being informed about it, I cannot do anything. Also with culture consideration, sometime what you think is right other does not think so. With that being said, I want to inform my clients about elderly negligent because it does happens and that they have the right to know what to do. Many of my Vietnamese elders do not know where to go for help or how to get resources. By telling them that they can get help by their case manager, or us
This article discusses how both the doctors and the patients feel about what procedures should have patient consent and what the patients want from their doctors before surgical procedures are done. I chose this article because it has great information about how the patients feel about new technological procedures and their comfort
The documentary, A Death of One’s Own, explores the end of life complexities that many terminal disease patients have to undergo in deciding on dying and dignity. It features three patients, their families, and caregivers debating the issue of physician-assisted suicide or pain relief than may speed up death. One character, Jim Witcher has ALS and knows the kind of death he is facing and wants to control its timing. Kitty Rayl is suffering from terminal cancer and wants to take advantage of her state’s Death with Dignity Act and take medication to terminate her life. Ricky Tackett, on the other hand, has liver failure and together with his family and caregiver agrees on terminal sedation to relieve his delirium and pain.
While I generally agree that most of the time the patient should defer to the medical professional’s expertise, I also believe that patient sometimes know more about
Ethical dilemmas may arise for patients, family members and healthcare providers alike. There are times when the ethics committee should be consulted, such as when there is a perceived ethical problem involving the care of a patient or health care providers have not been able to establish a solution that is agreed upon by the patient/ family and the provider caring for the patient. In the case of an ill family member that is in the hospital and the healthcare team is turning to the family to make medical decisions on the patient’s behalf. The family doesn't know how to decide what to do and could use some
Death is something that will eventually happen to everyone, but there are so many different ways of people that deal with death around them. There are some people who don’t deal with death well, so they become mentally and emotionally unstable for their entire life. On the other hand, there are people who accept death for what it is and take the necessary steps to become more tolerant to it. In Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande, he speaks about the various aspects (such as the cost of taking care of elderly people) that surround death that people often neglect. Death can be a very taxing area of discussion, but once people accept its cruel nature they can overcome the burden it brings.
In “ How Doctor Die”, an article written by Ken Murray, is about the way to prolong the life of doctors and patients when they have terminal illness. In most cases, a doctor home went, closed their practice and never set foot in a hospital again. They want to have more time with family. Doctor is a person treat the desease and save the patients; however, when they have illness, they are also like other patients. They can meet a difficulty with their patients in treament,but they feel easy when they are a patient. They tend to be fairly because they know about medicine to know its limits; they don’t want to die. Surely, eacht doctor has the preparation for death. In the other hand, some patients try to find a method to overcome their illness.
Moral decisions are not always easy decisions to make. However, necessary means are often provided to fulfill these difficult decisions. In health care, there are certain ethical principles or guidelines that help us make the appropriate choice when it comes to giving the best care to a patient, and they help justify the purpose for providing the best care to a patient. These principles are relevant in our health care system today in order for patient care to be as appropriate and as effective as possible.
“Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande is a book that anyone with parents or grandparents in the elderly stages of life can relate too. Many of the stories are relatable and during my time of reading the book I would take specific stories he tells and show them to my mom and ask her who in our family does this sound like and does this not sound like what we are going through with grandma. She immediately agreed and wanted to read on for the smallest idea to help or solution that could solve the problems and issues we are facing. Dr. Gawande is accounting the care and treatment of the elderly and the dying and how it has evolved and progressed over the last century to what it is today and could become within the future. Dr. Gawande was a general surgeon who took interest in the care and treatment of the elderly. Within the book he relates his own experiences with his elderly patients and their
Physician-assisted suicide is a very controversial topic in today’s society. Physician-assisted suicide is defined as an action performed by the physician at the request of the patient to end the patient’s life with certain medical procedures. The legalization of physician-assisted suicide should not be passed in the United States because it is not morally acceptable in the society, leads to misunderstanding of a physician’s duty and increases mental suffering of both patient’s family and doctor.
There are many reasons why a patient should be in control of their bodies , including the fact that they will be able to control what happens to them and be fully aware of the doctor’s intentions. For example in text 1 ( The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot ) it can be shown what could happen to you if you are not aware of what the doctors are doing to you . In the text it describes a story of a woman who got her cells basically stolen and later revealed to be immortal because of their self regenerative abilities . Not only are these cells still being used today but her family has gotten no type of pay or contribution for it . This shows exactly how doctors can behave and how it doesn’t hurt to be more aware of their actions . This also comes back to consent, because if Henrietta Lacks had given consent and understood exactly what she was giving consent for there would be no book written about her . Henrietta Lacks would have still died but at least the life changing trait she had that the
Life is never guaranteed and whether it is through an illness or an accident, we as humans are eventually going to die. Physicians Assisted suicide is one of the most controversial issues. The issue of doctor-assisted suicide has been the subject of the heated dispute in recent years. While some oppose the idea that a physician should aid in ending a life, others believe that physicians should be permitted in helping a patient to end his or her unbearable suffering when faced with a terminal illness. Furthermore, Physician-assisted suicide should be legal; it should be the patient’s right to decide when and how he or she should die.
Mrs. Brown, a patient with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) should have the option to end her life prematurely or to stay alive and suffer tremendously from a disease that is bound to kill her. Based on the readings and lecture in class, it has become apparent to me that choosing to die by withdrawing medication and choosing to die by taking medication follow very similar reasoning. On the paper Story of Teresa & Terrence - The Established Medical/Legal View, a parallel description of the reasoning that is followed for each case is shown, making clear the logical differences of each patient. In my opinion, the differences in the two cases of Teresa and Terrence are trivial at best. Both patients are choosing to die and taking deliberate measures to do so by changing the routine(s) of their treatment. If the means to die by stopping medication are permissible, the means to die by taking medication ought to be permissible.
The word “euthanize” means to bring about a person’s death to relieve them from serious distress. The topic of euthanasia in medicine has evolved since intensive care was first instituted. Before the 1950’s, a simple model was used to determine when someone was dead: the individual was dead when his or her heart stopped beating. In the modern light, the answer to this question isn’t as clear. With advancements in organ transplantation and other medical technologies, the stopping of a beating heart is no longer a definite death sentence. This prolonging of life brings about many ethical dilemmas in the field of medicine. One of the issues is patient autonomy. The practice of euthanasia has been established to put the choice back into the hands of the patient. To better understand euthanasia, there are five different types.