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Ethical dilemma in medical
Philosophical view on physician assisted suicide
Initial Thoughts about Physician Assisted Suicide
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Some people believe that doctors should not have the right to tell their patients that they have a condition that cannot be cured, and that they have a certain amount to live.Doctors should tell their patients because what if you will never know that the last few moments they have to live their lives they wanna do something with it. Doctors should be able
The patient might just be waiting for the disease they have caught to kill them, but it does not always go so quickly . ¨Ending a patient's life by injection, with the added solace that it will be quick and painless, is much easier than this constant physical and emotional care¨ (Ezekiel Emanuel, 1997, p. 75). If a patient is terminally ill and will not get better, it allows them to end the suffering. If the physician has to keep a constant eye on the patient and they need constant care and the patient is not getting better, the option is there if they want to end all of it they can. Sometimes dealing with all of the physical care like medications and not being able to live completely normal with a disease is hard. It can get extremely hard and stressful that all the patients can think about doing is ending it, this alternative gives the patient a painless option. According to Somerville (2009), ¨… respect for people's rights to autonomy and self determination means everyone has a right to die at a time of their choosing¨ ( p.4). The patient deserves to choose whether they want to keep fighting or if they cannot go any farther. The patient should not have to push through a fight they have been fighting and know they cannot win. According to Kevorkian ¨the patient decides when it's best to go.¨ Nobody tells the patient when they have to end their lives, they understand their body and know
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
In “How Doctors Die,” Dr. Ken Murray explains some different real stories about people having terminal diseases, and how their doctors and physicians treat them. Moreover, the author mentions about difficult decisions that not only the doctors but patients and the patients’ family also have to choose. When the patients’ diseases become critical, the doctors have to do whatever they can to help the patients, such as surgical treatment, chemotherapy, or radiation, but they cannot help the patients in some cases. In additions, doctors still die by critical diseases, too. Although they are doctors, they are just normal people and cannot resist all of the diseases. Like other patients, the doctors having critical diseases want to live instead of
In certain situations it is difficult for a person to decide between a moral and immoral choice. In the field of health there are physicians and patients that may have two different mindsets. One may be a patient that believes a decision is moral, while a physician may think the decision is immoral. How can the physician stick to his beliefs and morals when he must make a choice to go against them or not?
Patients are ultimately responsible for their own health and wellbeing and should be held responsible for the consequences of their decisions and actions. All people have the right to refuse treatment even where refusal may result in harm to themselves or in their own death and providers are legally bound to respect their decision. If patients cannot decide for themselves, but have previously decided to refuse treatment while still competent, their decision is legally binding. Where a patient's views are not known, the doctor has a responsibility to make a decision, but should consult other healthcare professionals and people close to the patient.
With the technology and advancements in medicine today, who is to say that a person's illness couldn't be cured within the next few months? Why should a person have to make the choice of ending his or her life if (s)he is unsure about a cure? How can someone else know if another person is really experiencing unbearable pain and suffering? Who gets to be the person who tells another that his or her life isn't worth living?
It is important that patients and family members understand the conditions under which the patient is suffering from. People have an obligation of preparing themselves for end of live. This can be done by writing a will or an Advance Directive to guide the medical personnel and family members on what the patient wants. It can also be done by assigning a medical care proxy to decide on the patients behalf (Groopman and Hartzband, 2011). Medical personnel need to consider the patients wish and act as per the law when deciding on end-life options. Most of the decisions made by terminally ill patients are biased and compromised.
Should doctors tell the truth to their patients? How much information should the patient know about a certain ill or operation? These controversial questions are asked more frequently in our society. Patients nowadays,. are very sensitive to certain diseases more than before. This paper argues against telling the truth in doctor-patient relationship. Not by defending the idea directly but, by presenting first how truth can be harmful to the patient and by giving Higgs’ objection to it, then by giving my own objection to Higgs’ argument.
This could also give doctors too much power, which could open the floodgate to non-critical patient suicides and other abuses. Government and insurance companies may put undue pressure on doctors to avoid heroic measures or recommend the procedure (Death with Dignity, n.d.). Overall, the end of one’s life should be left in the hands of that one individual and nobody else. People should be free to determine their own fates through their own autonomous choices, especially when it comes to private matters such as health. No one person’s life should be at the mercy of what other people believe is best.
Roger Higgs, in “On Telling Patients the Truth” supplies commonly used arguments for paternalistic deception. For the purposes of this paper, paternalism will be defined as, “interference with one’s autonomy or self determination for their own good.” The first argument for paternalistic deception is founded on the idea that medicine is a technical subject where there are very few guarantees (613). Thus, Higgs supplies the argument that not only is it impossible for a patient to understand the true breadth of their diagnosis and prognosis, but additionally that medical predictions are not medical truths. The second argument for paternalistic deception comes from the belief that patients do not actually want to know the truth about their condition, and could suffer from worse health outcomes if they are told the truth (614, 615).
We must never forget the legacies and the history of those who showed the world that everyone deserves the right to choose their own paths, to so what they know is right, and the choice to make their own decisions. If our country is ruled on the principals of freedom, then these freedoms should include the freedom of physicians to end the suffering of their patients, and patients who have terminal illnesses to seek a comfortable death surrounded by those they love.
Physician-assisted suicide refers to the physician acting indirectly in the death of the patient -- providing the means for death. The ethics of PAS is a continually debated topic. The range of arguments in support and opposition of PAS are vast. Justice, compassion, the moral irrelevance of the difference between killing and letting die, individual liberty are many arguments for PAS. The distinction between killing and letting die, sanctity of life, "do no harm" principle of medicine, and the potential for abuse are some of the arguments in favor of making PAS illegal. However, self-determination, and ultimately respect for autonomy are relied on heavily as principle arguments in the PAS issue.
I believe the patients have the right to refused treatment for any reason. Caring for the patients includes respecting the patients wishes. A patient can ethically refuse treatment for the purpose of saving money, not having the money for treatment, emotional, physical adverse effects, and for religious reasons, even if the treatment would benefit the patient. It is the patient who would be affected by the decision. For example, if the patient followed the doctor’s advice to have chemotherapy, the patient would agree to endure extreme amount of pain and inherent a huge hospital bill only to live a year or so. The patient has the right to die with dignity and save the money for his or her love ones. Part of the
17 year old Cassandra, a minor from Connecticut who suffers from Hodgkin lymphoma, can legally be forced to undergo chemotherapy after she explicitly expressed that she does not want the treatment. The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that she was to have no say in the decision. A minor’s right in a medical decision is a controversial issue in today’s society. Many states have laws that allow minors to make their own medical decisions, while others are strictly against it. Minor decision advocates argue that if the minor seems to have a full understanding of their decision, then it should be carried out.
The system does not want patients to die, but it does not want the to get better either. The aim is to just treat the symptoms of the disease, rather than treating the actual disease so the patients will keep coming back and the health care centers and pharmaceutical companies can continue to make money. Hospitals and other related health care centers have become solely focused on making a profit. The pharmaceutical companies incentivize the physicians to prescribe their drugs rather than carefully considering all possible treatment plans and choosing which would most benefit the patient. Furthermore, doctors are over scheduled with patients. They are paid for quantity of patients seen rather than quality of care provided. In the video, it mentioned that the female doctor was being scheduled for 30 patients per hour, meaning that she had two minutes each patient on average. This is not enough time for doctors, nurses, or any other health care provider to make sound decisions, let alone perform a thorough assessment of the patient. Although hospitals are a business and the business aspects needs to be successful in order to keep the doors open, I think it is ethical and morally wrong to be making such a profit off of patients by greatly inflating the costs. I believe that access to health care should be a right, not a