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providing pain management to the dying patient
essays on physician assisted suicide
essay on physician assisted suicide
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Terminally Ill Patients and Physician Assisted Suicide
For hundreds of years a doctor was sworn into practice with the Oath of Hippocrates. Although in the present time parts of the oath have oath has come into question on how they should be interrupted. "To do no harm," the question is what does one consider harm? With our modern technology in medicine our medical community has the ability to prolong a person's life for quite awhile. So the question now is to prolong a person's life that is suffering or basically alive from life support harmful? Or is ending that person's suffering harmful? Death is just another part of life. We are born, we live and then we die. But who is the one that decides when, where and how we die? Another question is ethics and morals, what is the difference between killing someone and letting them die?
Historically, God was thought as the life giver and taker. I was told as a child that when someone died it was because God needed him or her. So are we as mere humans disobeying our Lord by ending a person's life that is suffering? Should ...
Diane: A Case of Physician Assisted Suicide. Diane was a patient of Dr. Timothy Quill, who was diagnosed with acute myelomonocytic leukemia. Diane overcame alcoholism and had vaginal cancer in her youth. She had been under his care for a period of 8 years, during which an intimate doctor-patient bond had been established.
Several of the main reasons provided are, the state has the commitment to protect life, the medical profession, and vulnerable groups (Washington et al. v. Glucksberg et al., 1997). However, in 2008 the Supreme Courts reversed their previous decision and passed the Death with Dignity Act legalizing PAS for Washington State. This declares that terminally ill individuals in the states of Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Vermont now have the liberty to choose how they will end their lives with either hospice care, palliative care, comfort measures, or PAS. The question remains: will the rest of the United States follow their lead?
gotten to the point where they feel as if there is no point in living.
Although physician assisted suicide may result in the fulfillment of another’s choice, be considered a compassionate mean to end suffering, or even be considered a right, I believe it is not morally acceptable. In the act of physician assisted suicide, a patient voluntarily requests his or her doctor to assist in providing the means needed for self killing. In most cases of physician assisted suicide, patients who request this type of assistance are terminally ill and mentally competent (i.e. have sufficient understanding of an individual’s own situation and purpose and consequences of any action). Those who have committed the action of physician assisted suicide or condone the act may believe that one has the right to end their own life, the right of autonomy (the right or condition of self governing), the right to a dignified death, believe that others have a duty to minimize suffering, or believe it (physician assisted suicide) to be a compassionate act, or a combination of these things. However, since this act violates the intrinsic value of human life, it is not morally acceptable.
Physician assisted suicide (PAS) is a very important issue. It is also important tounderstand the terms and distinction between the varying degrees to which a person can be involved in hastening the death of a terminally ill individual. Euthanasia, a word that is often associated with physician assisted suicide, means the act or practice of killing for reasons of mercy. Assisted suicide takes place when a dying person who wishes to precipitate death, requests help in carrying out the act. In euthanasia, the dying patients may or may not be aware of what is happening to them and may or may not have requested to die. In an assisted suicide, the terminally ill person wants to die and has specifically asked for help. Physician-assisted suicide occurs when the individual assisting in the suicide is a doctor rather than a friend or family member. Because doctors are the people most familiar with their patients’ medical condition and have knowledge of and access to the necessary means to cause certain death, terminally ill patients who have made
I am writing my paper to a group of middle class college students. Majority of who are African American, and a teacher of Asian descent. My class is made up of about twenty student’s ages ranging from 18-33. The majority are females, and only 4 males. Most of the students in my class are from inner city Baltimore, and a couple are out of state. Also, majority of my class are working-class, not many are just students. In addition, we also have students that are also parents.
As precious as life is to come in to this world, there is debate about whether life going out of this world should hold the same amount of pricelessness, happiness, and peace in cases of the terminally ill with no chance of long-term survival. This deliberation of whether physician assisted suicide should be permitted is a major medical ethical concern, however, as a future nurse, this argument does not have a place in modern medicine. In the following sections, the ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, and nonmaleficence are discussed with regard to the patient’s best interest and the personal views and opinions of a prospective nurse.
Death, despite various definitions of the concept, is an unavoidable part of life in which all persons will one day become acquainted. However one prefers to essentially exist and prolong this event is completely his or her choice. Or is it? What, then, if an individual should choose death itself? Should that person, regardless of the reason for hastening death, be denied assistance if sought after?
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.
Pain is universal. In life, everyone will feel pain; it is inevitable and cruel. Physical or emotional, insignificant or severe, it is there. The pain continues mounting into an unbearable amount of suffering. Suffering that blots out everything of worth, such as family, love, aspirations, and optimism. Hopelessness seizes any will to endure. With no way to subside or control the pain, often one will go to extremes in order to be free of it. Many take their life, in order to escape the horror. Committing suicide is a traumatizing experience for any and all involved. Life is precious. The chance to live is only given once, and cannot be taken for granted. Preventing even a single life from ending early is imperative and obligatory to everyone. Suicide can never be an option. Why then is it acceptable as an alternative treatment for dire medical conditions? Physician-Assisted Suicides have a negative impact on those involved and is unethical.
Physician assisted suicide Physician assisted suicide, a suicide made possible by a physician providing a patient with the means to kill themselves, and euthanasia, the kindness of taking individual life by the physician, is an extremely debatable topic. Nonetheless, I am certain that there are some basic agreements that argue both for and against Physician assisted suicide and euthanasia, and when they are evaluated against each other there is a much solider case for prohibiting the Physician assisted suicide than for legalizing them. To begin, though, it is important to point out that prohibiting the practice in our society requires greater effort and argument than letting one.
Johnson, S. M., Cramer, R. J., Conroy, M. A., & Gardner, B. O. (2013). The Role of and
Whose life is it, anyway? Euthanasia is a word that means good death. Euthanasia normally implies that the act must be initiated by the person who wishes to commit suicide. But, some people define euthanasia to include both voluntary and involuntary termination of life. Physician assisted suicide is when a physician supplies information and/or the means of committing suicide (lethal dose of sleeping pills or carbon monoxide gas) to a person, so that they can easily terminate their own life.
disease that Stephen Hawking has) 5 years ago. This is a condition that destroys motor nerves, making control of movement impossible, while the mind is virtually unaffected. People with motor neurone disease normally die within 4 years of diagnosis from suffocation due to the inability of the inspiratory muscles to contract. The woman's condition has steadily declined. She is not expected to live through the month, and is worried about the pain that she will face in her final hours. She asks her doctor to give her diamorphine for pain if she begins to suffocate or choke. This will lessen her pain, but it will also hasten her death. About a week later, she falls very ill, and is having trouble breathing.
The first opposition to mercy killings was the Hippocratic oath which stated “I will not administer poison to anyone when asked to do so, nor suggest such a course”(Hippocratic). The Hippocratic oath was written by a Greek doctor who believed doctors must stay away from killing, only to be devoted to healing. The oath was an ethical foundation and guide for medical practice. Many physicians signed this oath up until the 20th century. This oath keeps physicians from helping persons in immense pain, from ending said pain (Hippocratic).