In “Should Doctors Tell the Truth?”, Collins argues that withholding the truth from patients is justified. Withholding the truth is the act of allowing another party to have a belief that is known to be false. Collins’ argument for withholding the truth from patients are supported by the following premises: Most patients do not want to know the truth, telling the truth can harm the patient, and doctors should not harm patients. Therefore, doctors should lie to patients.
In Collins’ support of the first premise, he states the effects of revealing the truth to patients. He believes, in most cases, the patient knowing the truth would not be able to handle it. This would commonly bring up two states, one where the patient completely denies the
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Throughout his readings he recalls multiple cases where patients who were told the truth were harmed as a result. In one case, a lawyer who found out the truth of his shoulder pain, but didn’t believe it died from an untreated disease. In another case, a friend of his who wouldn’t dare believe in his wife’s sexuality committed suicide. The third premise concerns the stance of many doctors, which is not to bring any harm to their patients. Collins supports this premise by recalling a lesson he learned from one of his early teachers. This lesson reveals if a patient shows a sign of a disease, but this disease is not yet life threatening, the doctor reserves the right to not tell the truth. By telling the truth, Collins believes that it would cause the patient unnecessary harm in the case that the patient may recover. Therefore, Doctors should lie to …show more content…
Collins argues that most patients do not want to know the truth. He supports this by suggesting, but not clearly stating, the patient’s emotional wellbeing is proof of this decision. I believe that using emotions to gauge a patient’s decision is not a liable method. In a time of high stress and decision making, there are several emotions that can emerge. Some may cry in frustration, laugh hysterically in disbelief or even become silent in affirmation of their current situation. Because of the variety in response, it is impossible to determine whether the patient wishes to know the truth or not unless verbally
The medical values learned in chapter 11 are, emotional detachment, professional socialization, clinical experience, mastering uncertainty, mechanistic model, intervention, and emphasis on acute and rare illnesses. The three that I mainly care about are, emotional detachment, mastering uncertainty, and clinical experience. Emotional detachment is a very important medical value because this can strongly affect not only the patient but the doctor as well. The doctor is supposed to sustain emotional detachment from patients. (Weitz 276). A doctor should try and keep their distance because their emotion can strongly affect the patient. How a doctor reacts or approaches a situation will show how they are with emotional detachment. Mastering
I have recently examined my latest patient, on OCtober 23 at 10:45 A.M. The patient has been accused with the murder of the old man. The patient admits to what he has done but his beliefs make him think that he is completely sane and not mad. “The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them”(Poe 203).
When it comes to a bad diagnosis it is often difficult for doctors to tell their patients this devastating news. The doctor will likely hold back from telling the patient the whole truth about their health because they believe the patient will become depressed. However, Schwartz argues that telling the patient the whole truth about their illness will cause depression and anxiety, but rather telling the patient the whole truth will empower and motivate the patient to make the most of their days. Many doctors will often also prescribe or offer treatment that will likely not help their health, but the doctors do so to make patients feel as though their may be a solution to the problem as they are unaware to the limited number of days they may have left. In comparison, people who are aware there is no cure to their diagnosis and many choose to live their last days not in the hospital or pain free from medications without a treatment holding them back. They can choose to live their last days with their family and will have more time and awareness to handle a will. Schwartz argues the importance of telling patients the truth about their diagnosis and communicating the person’s likely amount of time left as it will affect how the patient chooses to live their limited
Cullen and Klein understand that deception is wrong and disrespectful to the patient but criticize that some cases are more complicated and not so black and white. They argue that physicians should be able to withhold information that can significantly benefit the patient. The key part is that the benefit is greater than what the deception causes.
One of the most complex, ever-changing careers is the medical field. Physicians are not only faced with medical challenges, but also with ethical ones. In “Respect for Patients, Physicians, and the Truth”, by Susan Cullen and Margaret Klein, they discuss to great extent the complicated dilemmas physicians encounter during their practice. In their publication, Cullen and Klein discuss the pros and cons of disclosing the medical diagnosis (identifying the nature or cause of the disease), and the prognosis (the end result after treating the condition). But this subject is not easily regulated nor are there guidelines to follow. One example that clearly illustrates the ambiguity of the subject is when a patient is diagnosed with a serious, life-threatening
Almost doctors and physicians in the world have worked at a hospital, so they must know many patients’ circumstances. They have to do many medical treatments when the patients come to the emergency room. It looks like horror films with many torture scenes, and the patients have to pay for their pains. The doctors have to give the decisions for every circumstance, so they are very stressful. They just want to die instead of suffering those medical treatments. In that time, the patients’ family just believes in the doctors and tells them to do whatever they can, but the doctors just do something that 's possible. Almost patients have died after that expensive medical treatments, but the doctors still do those medical procedures. That doctors did not have enough confidence to tell the truth to the patients’ families. Other doctors have more confidence, so they explain the health condition to the patients’ families. One time, the author could not save his patient, and the patient had found another doctor to help her. That doctor decided to cut her legs, but the patient still died in fourteen days
Collins argument was for doctors to act in paternalistic lies. Paternalistic lies are lies that are told in someone best interest. A lot of times this act occurs between parents and children. The fact of the matter is this applies in the same way. As a medical professional doctors are believed to be in the right almost all the time, which is why patient try to follow doctors advice. In Lying and lies to the Sick and Dying by Sissla Bok, Bok argues it is not all right to lie
This internal conflict is a result of the mistakes a physician makes, and the ability to move on from it is regarded as almost unreachable. For example, in the essay, “When Doctors Make Mistakes”, Gawande is standing over his patient Louise Williams, viewing her “lips blue, her throat swollen, bloody, and suddenly closed passage” (73). The imagery of the patient’s lifeless body gives a larger meaning to the doctor’s daily preoccupations. Gawande’s use of morbid language helps the reader identify that death is, unfortunately, a facet of a physician’s career. However, Gawande does not leave the reader to ponder of what emotions went through him after witnessing the loss of his patient. He writes, “Perhaps a backup suction device should always be at hand, and better light more easily available. Perhaps the institutions could have trained me better for such crises” (“When Doctors Make Mistakes” 73). The repetition of “perhaps” only epitomizes the inability to move on from making a mistake. However, this repetitive language also demonstrates the ends a doctor will meet to save a patient’s life (73). Therefore, it is not the doctor, but medicine itself that can be seen as the gateway from life to death or vice versa. Although the limitations of medicine can allow for the death of a patient to occur, a doctor will still experience emotional turmoil after losing someone he was trying to
In an ideal medical society, no dilemma should arise on whistleblowing associated with poor medical practice or illegal behaviours. However these dilemmas arise when these whistle blowers take privileged information to the public in order to address their personal concerns or conscience. It can however be said that they are often left with little or no choice. Lipley (2001) discusses a case which occurred in the UK where a nurse wrote to the media reportedly that the elderly inpatients at her organisation did not receive adequate care and that this was jeopardising their lives. The appeals tribunal ruled that her decision was right and was both reasonable and an acceptable way to raise such issues ...
Patients can find great comfort in knowing they are not the only ones going through such a horrible experience. In an environment of people with something in common, everyone is much more likely to open up and share their innermost feelings and fears.
For the purpose of this case study, I will specifically examine the ethical issues of medical paternalism and deception-to-benefit-the-patient and whether their use can be viewed as justifiable. The act of “overriding a person’s actions or decision-making for his [or her] own good” or paternalism exercised by Dr. Haveford by choosing not to disclose all information to his patient can be evaluated through both the empirical and moral arguments against paternalism argued by Alan Goldman’s “The Refutation of Medical Paternalism” (Vaughn). It is mentioned that the doctor withheld information about clinical trials because he did not what to overwhelm the patient or cause her to experience emotional harm and, thus, he was acting in the best interest of his patient despite being aware of her value for honesty in their
… The doctors present agreed that there is no objective way of measuring or judging the claims of patients that their suffering is unbearable. And if it is difficult to measure suffering, how much more difficult to determine the value of a patient's statement that her life is not worth living?
But the success couldn't last. Things truly were too good to be true. As we saw, red flags were being thrown up all over the place. The evidence was growing overwhelmingly that the words being attributed to the patients were, in fact, the words of the facilitators.
Being honest requires courage and sacrifice. A lot of times people lie in fear of getting in trouble, to protect them and to protect other people. And other times, people simply do not follow through with what they say. In many cases, this leads to disappointment and mistrust. Having a high level of integrity is a core value of being a nurse and is one of the most important characteristics we can possess. Coming from a place of integrity means being reliable and giving a helping hand. This could mean answering a call light of a patient who is not “yours” or accommodating a request even if you do not want to. Looking back, I wish that had been the case in the terminal years of my grandfather’s life. Honesty is a value that
By using this approach, her intention is to appeal more to real life events by connecting with the audience through their values and interests to further her point. To prove the ethical side of her argument, she uses reasons shown in the study of "Participants reported having too little time or being too busy to seek medical care, that clinic hours were inconvenient (e.g., “Have to take time off from work”), that transportation was difficult or the distance was too far, that they were too sick to travel to the doctor’s office, or that an existing physical (e.g., multiple sclerosis) or mental health (e.g., depression, severe anxiety) problem prevented them from going” (Taber, Jennifer M., et al). Treatment of a medical issue whether it is something so miniscule like a common cold to being diagnosed with cancer should never be required to be put off due to these struggles. She uses the ethical appeal to her readers by stating issues ordinary people face in seeking medical care and making them aware that if these ways are not altered, it could lead to a higher number of preventative