The essay “A Crime of Compassion” was written by Barbara Huttmann. A story of love, dedication, moral values, and a nurse who loved her job and her patients very dearly. One of her patients was a young police officer who had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Within six months time, he had lost his youth, two of his five senses and his ability to do anything for himself. He had stopped breathing numerous times, and each time he was resuscitated. Eventually the pain became unbearable and he begged for God to take him. Being resuscitated wasn’t what he wanted anymore, he wanted to die. This nurse with so much love and so much knowledge relieved him of his pain and let him die. The public and the hospital then scolded her. She was labeled a murderer.
The author’s use of description was very detailed and very real. Reading this essay was like watching it on television. Every sentence was described with so much depth; there was no need to imagine the scenery or the excitement of the hospital. The healthy police officer was described as a young, witty macho cop with thirty-two pounds of attack equipment. When reading this, the vision of a man in a blue uniform with his gun and walkie-talkie enters the mind. When the man had been diagnosed with lung cancer he was described as a sixty pound skeleton being kept alive by liquid food poured down a tube.
The code blues were described horrifically. He stopped breathing two to three times a day, and every time he stopped he was resuscitated. “The nurses stayed to wipe away the saliva that drooled from his mouth, irrigate the big craters of bedsores that covered his hips, suction the lung fluids that threatened to drown him, clean the feces that burned his skin…” He was going through an agonizing ordeal, and he was being kept alive unnaturally. The pain he was enduring was far too much for any human or any animal to sustain.
“Compassion is always, at its most authentic, about a shift from the cramped world of self-preoccupation into a more expansive place of fellowship, of true kinship.” These words come from the book Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, written by Gregory Boyle, an American Jesuit priest and founder of Homeboy Industries, an organization that provides employment training and support to former gang members. I was first introduced to Father Boyle’s work during my final semester at College of the Holy Cross in “Contemporary Christian Morality”, a favorite course of mine that examined the fundamental ethics of moral agency, human freedom, conscience, sin, suffering and virtue. It was a book that has continued to stay with me for
In "Our Secret" by Susan Griffin, the essay uses fragments throughout the essay to symbolize all the topics and people that are involved. The fragments in the essay tie together insides and outsides, human nature, everything affected by past, secrets, cause and effect, and development with the content. These subjects and the fragments are also similar with her life stories and her interviewees that all go together. The author also uses her own memories mixed in with what she heard from the interviewees. Her recollection of her memory is not fully told, but with missing parts and added feelings. Her interviewee's words are told to her and brought to the paper with added information. She tells throughout the book about these recollections.
Barbara Huttman’s “A Crime of Compassion” has many warrants yet the thesis is not qualified. This is a story that explains the struggles of being a nurse and having to make split-second decisions, whether they are right or wrong. Barbara was a nurse who was taking care of a cancer patient named Mac. Mac had wasted away to a 60-pound skeleton (95). When he walked into the hospital, he was a macho police officer who believed he could single-handedly protect the whole city (95). His condition worsened every day until it got so bad that he had to be resuscitated two or three times a day. Barbara eventually gave into his wishes to be let go. Do you believe we should have the right to die?
Infidelity and betrayal were prominent problems in Kate Chopins book The Storm that depict real life issues. In this essay I intend to address the point of how detrimental the topic of sex was in Choplins The Storm and compare and contrast it to how it is displayed in James Carr “Dark end of the Street”. These to pieces compare because they are about infidelity and betrayal to a loved one. However, these two pieces also differ in some ways like how the cheater feels after what has been done. Whether it is gratification or regret.
Has the United States government kept secrets from its citizens? Conspiracy theories have been posed throughout the history of our nation. A conspiracy theory is defined as “a theory that explains an event as being the result of a plot by a covert group or organization; a belief that a particular unexplained event was caused by such a group” (Dictionary). Is this an on-going theme in U.S. Government history? Many people believe that our government has purposely fabricated or withheld information regarding historical events; was the moon landing simulated, were service men murdered at Pearl Harbor, who really shot President Kennedy? On the other hand, there are strong believers that the United States government has not and will not deceive its citizens. The novel Real Enemies by Kathryn S. Olmsted enlightens readers regarding major U.S. political and historical events.
This paper will talk about the book No Good Deed and how there are many ethical dilemmas that healthcare providers deal with every day. Each day there are ethical issues that arise, especially when caring for terminally ill patients. The book No Good Deed talks about how two nurses struggle with a situation that is far too common in healthcare today. Despite the literature about end of life care, it still remains an issue for many providers and patients. Nurses are lead to deal with multiple ethical issues seen in the book No Good Deed. After reading the book No Good Deed one is able to see how literature about end of life care is viewed and how beneficence plays are large role in nursing care.
Perhaps no other event in modern history has left us so perplexed and dumbfounded than the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, an entire population was simply robbed of their existence. In “Our Secret,” Susan Griffin tries to explain what could possibly lead an individual to execute such inhumane acts to a large group of people. She delves into Heinrich Himmler’s life and investigates all the events leading up to him joining the Nazi party. In“Panopticism,” Michel Foucault argues that modern society has been shaped by disciplinary mechanisms deriving from the plague as well as Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, a structure with a tower in the middle meant for surveillance. Susan Griffin tries to explain what happened in Germany through Himmler’s childhood while Foucault better explains these events by describing how society as a whole operates.
Nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals symbolize people whom we seek in time of need, but in the article, “Reconceptualizing the notion of victim selection, risk, and offender behavior in healthcare serial murders”, we are introduced to a new type of monster. Lubaszka and Shon define healthcare serial killers as, “any healthcare professional or worker who intentionally kills two or more patients in a care-giving environment for reasons not related to mercy, euthanasia, or physician ass...
Love has many definitions and can be interpreted in many different ways. William Maxwell demonstrates this in his story “Love”. Maxwell opens up his story with a positive outlook on “Love” by saying, “Miss Vera Brown, she wrote on the blackboard, letter by letter in flawlessly oval palmer method. Our teacher for fifth grade. The name might as well have been graven in stone” (1). By the end of the story, the students “love” for their teachers no longer has a positive meaning, because of a turn in events that leads to a tragic ending. One could claim that throughout the story, Maxwell uses short descriptive sentences with added details that foreshadow the tragic ending.
The nursing profession is formed upon the Hippocratic practice of "do no harm" and an ethic of moral opposition to ending another human’s life. The Code of Ethics for nurses prohibits intentionally terminating any human life. Nurses are compelled to provide ease of suffering, comfort and ideally a death that is coherent with the values and wishes of the dying patient, however; it is essential that nurses uphold the ethical obligations of the profession and not partake in assisted suicide. (King, 2003)
In “Youthful Indiscretions: Should Colleges Protect Social Network Users from Themselves and Others?” Dana Fleming presents an essay concerning the safety of social networking sites and how Universities can deal and prevent problems. This article is targeted towards school administrators, faculty, and a social networking user audience who will either agree or disagree with her statement. I believe Fleming presents an excellent, substantial case for why she reasons the way she does. Fleming gives a sound, logical argument according to Toulmin’s Schema. This essay has an evident enthymeme, which has a claim and reasons why she believes in that way. Toulmin refers to this as “grounds."
Christina Robbins awakens screaming as she clinches the railing of her hospital bed while excruciating pain radiates through her weakened body. Christina’s husband and two teenage daughters sit on the couch in the corner of her dimmed hospital room. In just three months, Christina went from a completely healthy lawyer to lying in her deathbed needing 24 hour care. The cancer has now spread from her lungs throughout her body and within days would reach her brain. The doctors have tried to keep Christina’s pain under control, but with all the medicine the slightest touch feels like razor blades scraping her skin. Being a terminal patient is rather difficult to come to terms with, leaving unpaid bills behind, losing bodily control, and having family watch them die a slow painful death. Incidentally Christiana does not live in one of the four states that offer Physician Assisted Suicide. Physician Assisted Suicide should be legalized in all states because it is a freedom of choice, ceases one’s pain and suffering and decreases traditional suicide rates.
In the poem pride, Dahlia Ravikovitch uses many poetic devices. She uses an analogy for the poem as a whole, and a few metaphors inside it, such as, “the rock has an open wound.” Ravikovitch also uses personification multiple times, for example: “Years pass over them as they wait.” and, “the seaweed whips around, the sea bursts forth and rolls back--” Ravikovitch also uses inclusive language such as when she says: “I’m telling you,” and “I told you.” She uses these phrases to make the reader feel apart of the poem, and to draw the reader in. She also uses repetition, for example, repetition of the word years.
After reading Joyce Carol Oates story, “ The Night Nurse,” revenge is what is found. This story starts off by a woman by the name of Grace Burkhardt, collapsing at a shopping mall because of a reason that was unknown at the time. She is taken in an ambulance to a hospital where she undergoes an emergency surgery for a blood clot that is in her leg that could have traveled to her heart. Grace’s stay in the hospital that night was not how she expected. The worst pain a person can indure, is the one who is left out. In the beginning of the story Grace explains herself as being laid back. “I am behaving well, look how calm and civilized” (654). Grace never screamed out at the shopping mall. She tried to act as calm as possible. Even though Grace was in so much pain, she never sobbed to God or never did she ask, “Am I dying? Will I die” (654)? Shortly after the doctors took care of Grace, she went into surgery. After this is when her attitude begins to change.
Several ethical principles that are incorporated in the nursing care of patients on a daily basis are nonmalificence, autonomy, beneficence, justice, fidelity and paternalism. Nurses should strive to comply to as many of the principles as possible. In this case there are principles which support and conflict with the wishes of the patient. The first principle that supports the wish of the patient is autonomy. Autonomy means that competent patients have the right to make decisions for themselves and the delivery of the healthcare that they receive. Another factor that would support the patient’s wish to not be resuscitated is nonmalificence. Non maleficence means that nurses should not cause harm or injury to their patients. In this case the likelihood of injury after resuscitation was greater than if the patient were allowed to expire. A principle that could have negatively affected the outcome of the provision of ethical care was paternalism. Paternalism is when a healthcare provider feels that they know what is best for a patient, regardless of the patient’s desire for their own care. I demonstrated the principle of paternalism because I thought that I knew what was best for the patient without first consulting with the patient or family. This situation might have had some very negative consequences had the patient not have been competent. Practicing a paternalistic mindset might have caused a practitioner in the same instance to force their ideas about not resuscitating the loved one onto the family. This could have caused a sense of remorse and loss of control of care amongst the