Atul Gawande, the writer of Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, is a surgeon and a professor at Harvard Medical School. This is an inspiring book that unwraps people’s mind to scrutinize and question our current practice of medicine and care.
The flow and organization of the topics are structured chronologically and easy for readers to have a clear depiction of the progression of the book. He explains and elaborates his ideas and assumptions on struggles with morality, through real voices of patients and his own personal encounter. The first few topics were lighthearted, more on procedural terms such as the demographics of care in the United States and India and the evolution of care. This heightens to themes that are close to one’s heart as he uncovers the relationship amongst medicine, patient, and the family. It also deliberates on the concerns after medicine becomes impotent and society is ill-equipped for the aging population, which highlight the decisions and conversations one should or might have pertaining to death. He makes
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Even if we hold such conversations, would people be less passive, dare to seek the truth in their health and speak of what is significant in their lives? Medicine has ironically brought older adults closer to health institutions, where they see these homes as odious and see themselves as abandoned. If I must be scrupulous, it would be having to postulate concrete examples on the environment and resources for the older adults, perhaps through nationwide initiative or authorize advance medical directives compulsory. Most crucially, to instill the philosophy of assisted care in a positive light and not as alienation. With that, it could lessen the negative connotations on how the elders perceive themselves in the assisted
While the majority of the book critiques the healthcare system, Chapter 13 focuses more on key actions and personality traits that help Dr. Stone relate to patients. Although this noteworthy, compassionate physician attempts to develop an understanding of his patients’ values and goals, he still fails Mrs. Jackson by trying to retain cultural competency by tiptoeing around end-of-life decisions. Conversations about feeding tube placement and DNR orders could have minimized Mrs. Jackson’s unnecessary
Many of his suggestions provided revolve around training doctors to better assist patients in end-of-life care decisions and to ask pertinent questions and have frank discussions on the matter that encompass more than just medical care, which is what much of the literature provides. However, while many of these suggestions can be implemented, one relevant question is whether healthcare providers, when faced with these critical junctures, always have the time to do so, especially if it is a time-sensitive intervention that requires quick thinking. This may be why Gawande advocates for planning beforehand with the family/patient regarding their desires for end-of-life care, so that if this critical juncture is reached, the best decision is made that accords with the wishes of the
Increasingly, people know from their own experience some painful dilemmas involving elderly or handicapped individuals who are in pain. While the achievements of modern medicine have been used to prolong and enhance life for many, they have also helped create an often dreaded context for dying. Costly technology may keep persons alive, but frequently these persons are cut off from meaningful relationships with others and exist with little or no hope for recovery. Many fearfully imagine a situation at the end of their lives where they or their trusted ones will have no say in decisions about their treatment.
Tom Harpur, in his 1990 article in the Toronto Star - "Human dignity must figure in decisions to prolong life" - presents numerous arguments in support of his thesis that the use of advanced medical technology to prolong life is often immoral and unethical, and does not take into consideration the wishes of the patient or their human dignity. However, it must be noted that the opening one-third of the article is devoted to a particular "human interest" story which the author uses to illustrate his broader argument, as well as to arouse pity among readers to support his view that human life should not always be prolonged by medical technology. This opening section suggests that a critical analysis of Harpur 's arguments may find widespread use of logical fallacies in support of the article 's thesis. In this essay I will argue that, given how greatly
In Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Values, Peter Singer examines ethical dilemmas that confront us in the twentieth century by identifying inconsistencies between the theory and practice of ethics in medicine. With advancements in medical technology, we focus on the quality of patients’ lives. Singer believes that in this process, we have acknowledged a new set of values that conflicts with the doctrine of the sanctity of life.
With the growing debate on the legality of physician assisted suicide happening in the United States,it is important for everyone to know the position that are being advocated. Having a full sense of knowledge on the conversation taking place gives people who are interested on this topic the necessary tool to draw their own conclusion on how they should feel on this particular issue. Even if someone is not interested in this topic on a cultural level, they should in a personal sense because it might affect their family or themselves one day. In a way this issue and debate affects everyone because there might be a possibility that we acquire a terminal illness, and when this happen we are either denied the option of PAS or granted that option, depending the status of it.
Lisa Keränen introduces us to her article through a discussion of the technicality (from both an actual technological and also an official standpoint) as it regards to the decision to end a humans’ life. Dr. Keränen uses a hospital as a ‘micro example’ of a much bigger point she is trying to get across to its reader. The hospital in question uses a patient worksheet form in order to let stakeholders (i.e: family members of patients and/or patients who are of sound mind) to know of the patients and their options allowed when the disease has progressed to a stage where it is certain that he or she cannot recover from. The worksheet offers options which the patient has to reduce their pain and the goal of Dr. Keränen article is to show how much a personal decision such as choosing death has now become an institutionalized
Atul Gawande is, undoubtedly, one of the biggest names in medicine today. He has written four New York Times Bestsellers and is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and the New York Times. It’s his books (Complications, Better, The Checklist Manifesto, and Being Mortal), though, that I would love to talk to him about.
The medical field is designed to save lives and this article “No Risky Chances,” by Author Atul Gawande’s published in the online magazine Slate, reminds medical professionals one very important thing that there is no risky chances my determining treatment options, professionals need to consider options, professionals need to consider options, professionals need to consider options that are aligned with the patients personal choice which can range from maintaining life by any means necessary to continued comfort until death. Either way it is important for medical staff to be trained not only in saving life’s but also in preparing for patient death.
The approach of physician-assisted suicide respects an individual’s need for personal dignity. It does not force the terminally ill patient to linger hopelessly, and helplessly, often at great cost to their psyche. It drive’s people mad knowing they are going to die in a short period of time, suffering while they wait in a hospital bed.
In this specific case the father of the severe ill child, took her life under acknowledgement of her intense pain and incurable health condition. For Kant, the good moral act is based on the ability and possibility of the universalization of a determined conduct or action that is led by a natural human Good Will. We can see Kant’s own thought condensed in some of today’s bioethical and medical deontology; being a normative ethical system, supported on the ideal of what should be (free choice field) more than what it is (nature and physics laws), we face the reality of death as part of life, and human life as value in itself. In fact, we have been witnessed dilemmas, so how medical codes have arisen, being more specific and involving in more complex we cannot just trust in a system based on a fixed code, but to analyze each case, from a set of universally accepted principles, stablish the basis of procedure, in the studied case for example in the best possible and merciful way to terminate the life of an extreme suffering human
Miller discuses many themes concerning death and illness. It has come to be that society view illness as a time of suffering and burden, where families and individuals are afraid of becoming sick with a chronic illness because of all the pain and suffering that comes along with it. Illness has become about prolonging life with a multitude of excess problems and a more painful life. Families and caregivers become overburdened while the patient suffers while wishing their illness to be anything but a burden to their caregivers. Death in our society is viewed very differently to different people within different settings. In a hospital for instance, death is treated as an emptiness. The existence of bright rooms, white floors, machines ringing, and tied up tubes as a patient dies is very mechanical and represents a businesslike experience as the patient is immediately forgotten after they die while their bodies are quickly shuffled out the door to make room for the next chronically ill patient. Society today views death and illness with unease and apprehension because of the fear around it where people view the hospital environment as a place for acute trauma and illness not a place of healing where one can die with dignity. On the other hand, death in places like Dr. Millers Zen Hospital have developed rituals around topic so when a patient dies there is recognition of the patient’s individuality as a human being. The Zen hospital’s rituals involve
In Shapiro’s poem, the person expressed how his loved one’ suffering had turned to cause him pain as well. The persona was disturbed by the patients suffering and pain to a point of lacking sleep. In the piece, “The Care of the Patient,” by Pearbody (1927), he says that doctors should aim at developing an intimate relationship with their patients, including knowing the patients right from their home surroundings. This is the first step towards learning the conditions of the patients’ loved ones and understanding how best to help them in their suffering. However, minding the suffering of the patient’s loved ones does not mean that doctors owe anything to them. Doctors should only give their best, treating patients from their hearts. A doctor should, however, always tell the truth to both patients and their loved ones even when healing is not an option. If no cure is available, doctors should instead of giving false hopes to patients and their loved one, try to prepare them to accept death as an unavoidable eventuality. This according to me, can relieve some of the unnecessary fear and
As medical procedures and techniques have become more advanced, doctors are able to do much more to try and save a patient's life (Warriach). In some cases, however, this process is only delaying the inevitable and causing the patient even more suffering. If euthanasia were legal, patients could willingly choose to end this long process of torment, specifically in terminal cases where both would lead to the same result: death. In a hospital, a patient's life gets dragged on despite the condition by medical tools and devices such as respirators (Warriach). The only way to cease the patient’s anguish is by ending all means of life support. If euthanasia were presented as an option, it would save the patient, along with their family, from immense pain and
There are many negative aspects of legalizing euthanasia. One of the important negative factors would be the power that the doctor has in deciding about the patient’s life. As it is written in the book “A natural law ethics approach”, legalizing applications of euthanasia’s forms are attributing the doctors the role of God (Paterson 28-29). As a result, it becomes doctor’s decision for the patient, for h...