...In his essay “When Medicine Is Futile” Barron H. Lerner talks about how dying patients in America, in his opinion can not have a peaceful death. Important role in his writing represents his dad and his thinking. He has a big influence on Lerner`s opinion about the medicine in general. He argues that people die too many times connected to all kinds of machines and tubes that don`t really help them. Lerner describes some of the stories that his father kept in the journals. They have one common thing, and that is that event though the doctors knew the patients is going to die, his family was still hoping for a miracle and they did not want to accept that there is nothing that the doctors can do, to save the patient`s life. Reading and thinking about Lerner`s article lead me to ask myself; is it really true that there are no chances at all to save any patient? I think we should all still keep faith and stay optimistic that things will go better, no matter what situation we find ourselves in. In connection to that when we think about medicine, here comes the controversial problem about euthanasia. Should it be legalized and what are the pros and cons of it? Euthanasia is one of the most pressing issues of modern society. The development of medicine has put humanity against serious dilemma where the use of medical resources no longer offers the cure. As it is developing in many areas, there are still those areas where we ask ourselves; what to do if medicine can not help us? Such...
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...patient and the possibility of being in a persistent vegetative state (PSV), families routinely choose this option, largely because an informative conversation has never taken place as to the implications of these decisions. This is an issue which can no longer be overlooked. It is costing our nation dearly, both ethically and fiscally. As Americans, it is high time that we come to terms with our mortality and accept the reality that death awaits us all. Denial will not make it less likely to occur. As such, in an effort to promote awareness of this issue and the detrimental impact it has on patients and society as a whole, the following will define and explain the various components of the debate. Overview The emergence of modern medicine in the second half of the 20th century, while nothing short of remarkable, has come with its own set of challenges. Over the years, health care has become more readily available as employee sponsored health plans have extended coverage to more and more Americans providing better and more comprehensive benefits....
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...in the USA alone. Is this really necessary? I believe that this torture is cruel and horribly selfish and barbarian. Not only are we harming innocent animals when there are many other valid ways of experimenting but everyday animals are being brutally killed for experiments that aren't even proven to give valuable, reliable results. Animal experimentation is a universal issue which provokes much controversy. As such a provocative subject it inevitably demands much attention. There is an aggressive yet on going argument which furiously debates the ethical question of animal rights against particularly ruthless scientific experiments. There is a plethora of statistics and data which strengthen the fight to ban animal testing, for example opinions of prestigious medical doctors and veterinary surgeons. Also, the misleading and underhanded attempt to disguise the vile treatment of animals by major companies and even charities insinuates that the immorality and pain inflicted upon these innocent creatures is in fact widely recognised, yet ignored. This needs to be changed. The success of animal experimentation is often exaggerated as revealed in a horrifying story told by the 'Daily Mail'. In 2000 a project carried out by Cambridge-based Imutran, which involved transplanting genetically modified pig hearts and kidneys into monkeys was told as a success story, until vital and disturbing evidence was leaked to the public which strongly contradicted Imutran's initial account. ...
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...span is about seventy-eight years. Yet, some of us get sick, diseased or injured in an accident and become comatose. When the medical condition of a person is deemed progressive, terminal and there is no hope of recovery, that person should be able to exercise the option of ending their life. Particularly, when that individual feels he or she cannot stand the suffering in the last stages of their disease. Moreover, if a person has sustained an injury where their brain is not functional or damaged beyond basic functions, euthanasia is an option to lengthy life-sustaining treatment methods that may be futile. However, euthanasia has been a debated topic since the Greek-written Hippocratic Oath. This Oath is one of the first statements of moral conduct where doctors and health care professionals profess to do no harm by practicing medicine ethically. There are many opinions that in certain special populations, such as minorities and the disabled, euthanasia and assisted suicide give ways to possible abuse of the health care system. The three states that that now allow assisted suicide are Washington (2008), Montana (2008), and Oregon (1994), euthanasia is still illegal in the United States. The difference between euthanasia and assisted suicide is the administration of the lethal drugs to the patient. If the physician or another person directly administers lethal medications to patient, the action is called euthanasia. Euthanasia is acknowledged in two ways: active...
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...Euthanasia is illegal throughout the world with the exception of Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. However, in public debates and in bioethics literature, the term euthanasia often carries a broader meaning. Forgoing life-sustaining treatment (LST) is often considered as one form of euthanasia, labeled as “passive euthanasia”. Different ethicists define “passive euthanasia” differently. Some define the term as all forms of forgoing LST, while some define it as forgoing LST with the intention to shorten life. It should be noted that, legally and medically, forgoing LST is distinct from active euthanasia. The former, if carried out under appropriate circumstances (when it is the wish of a mentally competent patient or when the treatment is futile), is legally acceptable in most parts of the world including Hong Kong. To avoid any unnecessary confusing connotations, the term “passive euthanasia” is not recommended by the medical and legal field, and the term is not used...
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...Death, dying and other ethical dilemmas Anand Chatoorgoon University of Phoenix Death, dying and other ethical dilemmas are issues that all Intensive Care Units (ICUs) throughout the world have to face and address. In the Current Opinion in Critical Care, Vol 16, No 6, December 2010, p. 640, Dixon-Woods and Bosk, writing on the topic of “Death, dying and other ethical dilemmas” under the journal’s section of ‘Ethical, legal and organizational issues in the ICU’, have stated that “Recent ethnographic work suggests that ethical dilemmas associated with end-of-life care in ICU clearly persist, even if clinicians are now more open about patients’ chances of surviving. An Australian study identified how decisions and actions made outside the ICU—such as proceeding with surgical procedures with very poor prognosis or admitting moribund patients who had sustained severe respiratory or cardiac arrest—led to a higher than expected rate of non-booked admissions. Staff believed these to be the result of futile interventions by staff outside the ICU that then resulted in ICU staff having to manage the patient and family through the dying process. ICU staff believed that this practice was detrimental to families by offering false hope of recovery, and that they were left to ‘clear up the unfinished work of medical staff’. Other studies have also documented the problems faced by staff confronted by patients whose potential for recovery is, at best, marginal, or when patients’...
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...the system made escaping the cycle of poverty a futile goal. In his piece, “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” Singer challenges the world to attack this inequality, and compels the fortunate population to give away money usually spent on luxuries. Exorbitant displays of wealth have no place in an international climate where entire communities are unable to find nourishment, drinking water, and medical care, and...
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...Health Care Supply Chain The developments in health care encompassed vertical and horizontal integration, managed care pressures, and the rise of e-commerce. There have also been many other changes, few of them are: Hospitals and hospital systems vertically integrated into the health insurance business, such as starting up their own Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and ambulatory care practices, in the process of developing Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs). Attempts to integrate downstream towards the patients to capture a greater portion of patient flows and insurance premiums lead to the development of HMOs. Initially such attempts were futile and providers had to integrate upstream with the wholesalers and distributors to improve their financial position. Every major player along the value chain horizontally consolidated to form large organizations. Hospitals merged to form hospital systems or joined other systems. Group purchasing organizations (GPOs) started catering to different systems and distributors started building warehouses where demands from various systems are consolidated. A typical healthcare supply chain is a complex network consisting of many different parties at various stages of the value chain. The three major types of players are: Producers (product manufacturers), Purchasers (group purchasing organizations, or GPOs, and wholesalers/distributors), and health care providers (hospital systems and integrated delivery networks, or IDNs). This chain...
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...Suffering has always been a part of human existence. Request to end suffering by means of death through both physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia have occurred since the beginning of medicine. By definition, assisted suicide is a type of active euthanasia in which a physician facilitates a patient’s death by providing the necessary means of death to enable the patient to perform the life-ending act. Usually by prescribing a lethal dose of drugs but the patient is responsible for performing the final act (Codes of Ethics). Even though physician- assisted suicide is illegal, many people and doctors believe that it should be legal to help terminally ill people at the end of their life while others believe it is against their beliefs and religion to commit any type of suicide. This paper is going to show why doctor assisted suicide should be legalized because at the end of their lives, most people do not want to suffer. Only a terminal ill patient is really aware of what it is like to experience intractable suffering; even with pain relievers. Those who have not experiences it cannot fully appreciate what effect it has on quality of life. Apart from physical pain, overcoming the emotional pain of losing independence is an additional factor that only the patient comprehends fully. In medicine prolongation of living may sometimes turn into prolongation of dying. Why should be a patient be forced experience a slow death? Many families don’t want to see their loved ones suffer and...
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...aborted for various reasons. Complicating medical factors and birth defects, unwanted sexual encounters, and career and non-career wise family planning are all justifiable reasons to support one’s decision to decide to abort the fetus that grows in her body. In the realm of modern medicine, it is quite easy for OB/GYNs and other doctors to determine the health of the child after it has left the womb. In these cases, the opinion of a professional can result in the female having the option to choose abortion to reduce the chances of the child being born with a birth defect, or in some cases, to save the life of the female carrying the baby. According to Richie (2013), anencephaly is a neural tube defect that does not allow for the proper development of the brain. Typically, these babies only have a brain stem, which allows the heart to beat but does not allow for the ability to thrive outside the womb, which doctors have determined to be a major birth defect. If the fetus makes it to term, many of these infants do not live longer than a few hours or days and due to the nature and severity of this birth defect, many physicians will not provide nutritive support as it is believed to be medically futile. When the mother is presented with complicating factors such as an incompetent cervix, this can lead to secondary complications, i.e., fetal septicemia, uterine rupture, and renal failure. Many of these secondary complications can, in turn, cause fetal death unless the mother aborts...
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...Die Everyone has the right to control the healthcare they receive, completely and totally. Now, if this statement were really true, should that not also include ones right to choose death over terminal suffering? Although human euthanasia is a tender subject for many people, an assisted dying law would not result in more deaths but is an economically beneficial practice that would create a better quality of life and care for patients, and ultimately will result in fewer people suffering. The opinion about an assisted suicide law is divided into roughly two groups; those who find it unethical and those who argue it would give patients a chance to die with dignity. Although many think that assisted death will start down a slippery slope to a ‘Purge’ like situation. I strongly believe that strict guidelines could prevent such. Through clear strategies and procedures, as a country, we can create a method to allow doctors in assisting terminally ill patients with death. Modern medicine has made leaps and bounds in the recent years past ensuring patients better care and longer lives. Though, in certain situations those longer lives turn into torture. There are two types of human euthanasia, passive and non-aggressive, one of which is already used today. Passive euthanasia is when doctors terminate life-support when a patient is Rougeaux 2 considered brain dead. Although doctors can passively euthanize a patient to alleviate suffering while they are brain dead, the application...
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...1 Legal Case Paper The Case of Theresa Marie Schiavo: A Violation of Human Right? 2 The Case of Theresa Marie Schiavo: A Violation of Human Rights? Evolution of the Case In the early morning hours of February 25th, 1990, Theresa (Terri) Marie Schiavo suffered cardiac arrest at her home in St. Petersburg, Florida. Her husband awoke to the sound of her collapsing in the hallway and quickly called 911. Terri was found in full cardiac arrest and taken to Humana Northside Hospital. Unfortunately, the then twenty-six year old Terri had suffered irreversible damage due to prolonged lack of oxygen to the brain. Terri is left in a persistent vegetative state and has a feeding tube and requires total care (Schindler v Schiavo, 2005). The next three years consist of her husband, Michael, and her parents Robert and Mary Schindler working together to take care of Terri. During this time Michael was appointed as Terri’s legal guardian without objection from her parents. In February of 1993 Michael Schiavo and the Schindler’s began to disagree about Terri’s care and the Schindler’s attempted to remove Michael as her legal guardian (Cerminara & Goodman, 2005). In May of 1998, Michael Schiavo made his first attempt to petition the court for the removal of Terri’s feeding tube. Michael believed that there was no hope for any sort of recovery or changes in Terri’s persistent vegetative state and had stated that his wife told him that she would not want to live like that...
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...* What is medicalisation? and why is professional and public concern about medicalisation on the increase? (Conrad 2005)? Professional concern as power is more and more being handed over to consumers. Public concern-loss of power to deal with day to day problems. Medicalization can be defined as the way in which human problems become defined and treated as medical problems (Sadler, Jotterand et al. 2009). Medicalization is often viewed as a ‘bad’ thing, however Peter Conrad argues that it is a neutral term (Parens 2011). However today the term medicalization is usually used in criticism of medicalization, perhaps over-medicalization would be more appropriate, and the term medicalization kept neutral, simply humans problems being treated as medical ones, whether beneficial or not. In the early days of the examination of medicalization it became clear that some of the main powers driving and facilitating this phenomenon were medical professionals and pharmaceutical companies. The power and authority of the medical professionals was an important force of medicalization (Conrad 2005). Their influence can be seen in the treatment of menopause, childbirth and child abuse (Conrad 2005). Writings by Ivan Illich, Michelle Foucault and R.D Laing raised awareness and concern about medical concepts, procedures and power; they highlighted medicalization as a bad thing for our society and suggested that a change was needed in order to regain power in regards to our lives and human...
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...As Schicktanz et al. (2010) showed in their research of passive euthanasia and the differences in medical views between Germany and Israel, there are opposing views within and between countries. These differences in opinions can be based of “psychological, philosophical, and religious reasons” that can vary greatly between countries (Schicktanz et al. 2010). In their paper, Schicktanz et al. expressed that Germany believes that withholding and withdrawing medical care is held by the idea of letting die, as long as the patient is in full agreement with the situation. Both situations hold onto the idea of keeping one’s autonomy in end of life decisions and by controlling if having treatment withdrawn is harmful to their autonomy. The Israeli report showed that they had an opposing view. They agreed that withholding treatment with the consent or agreement of the patient is acceptable. However, they did not believe removing or withdrawing continuous treatment should...
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...Axia College Material Appendix B Final Exam • Access the Electronic Reserve Readings link on your student Web site for Week Nine. • Select one of the topics below and read both articles that present opposing sides of the argument surrounding that topic. o Animal experimentation o Outsourcing o Media violence • Answer the following questions in paragraphs of approximately 100 words demonstrating your critical and creative thinking skills. 1. Identify if the topic you chose, as presented by both articles, is a problem or an issue and explain what makes it a problem or an issue. If you believe the articles present both problems and issues, identify and explain what the problems are and what the issues are. The problem is, in order to have medication which is safe for human consumption, it needs to be tested. When the testing needed is based on the use of animals, it becomes an issue because many individuals believe that the research is implacable, barbarous, expensive, and erroneous. It is also argued that it is not necessary and that more emphasis should be put on medical prevention. Supporters of animal research believe that we would not have the medical advances in treatment and medication that we do, were it not for the experiments done on animals and that it is key to preventing disease, . 2. Were the problems or issues expressed effectively? Describe how the problems or issues were or were not best expressed. I believe that both articles effectively...
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