There is a difficult balance between the explanations and statistical correctness explanations of survival data that is understood by many medically ill patients. Although such circumstances can be very tough to deal with, the late Stephen Jay Gould who better translated the ways median characteristics alter our interpretation of messages. Gould was biologist who illustrated about his median statistical life expectancy following his diagnosis with a fatal tumor abdominal mesothelioma. The prognosis determined he had the median mortality totaling eight months (Gould 1985). Nevertheless, Gould didn’t allow his diagnosis to be the main determinant of its outcome. As a biologist and a person with training in statistics, Gould knew that a median is simply a variation of the hard reality rather than imperfect measure for a central tendency (Gould 1985). Gould used individual variabilities to analyze and determine the way in which an individual should appreciate and understand …show more content…
What can be an accurate way of determining likelihoods would be understanding data skews and analyzing distribution spreads. A Median should never be used when attempting to predict the overall probability of an outcome. If someone were to ever find themselves in a similar situation as Gould’s condition, my best suggested option to the delivery of terminal news to patients by physicians would be that they provide un biased misguided diagnosis based on the median outcome of that condition. They should present statistical research filled with data distribution on survival rates based on how early the condition was diagnosed and how healthy a lifestyle that patient has been able to maintain up until that point. Human beings do not have an expiration date but survivor based on skews of data influenced by lifestyle, health, age and
I chose not to use any of the prompts provided, but instead connect the article to what I learned in my sociology class lass quarter. In class we watched part one of film series of Unnatural causes, titled Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making us Sick "In Sickness and in Wealth". While reading the article this reminded me about the cases studied in the film to see whether wealth inequality contributes to making people sick. In the film they focused on the social determinants of health, wealth and education. In both the article and part one of the film Unnatural Causes they focused on three different individuals and how their health are affected by they choices they make and the access they have to care.
As good writers do, Kevin has exquisitely used language to favor his side. His wide arsenal includes weapons such as non-sequiturs, vague comparisons, jargons, emotive terms, connoted meanings and multiple others. The author knew that his target audience would not be specialized in bioengineering and its application in the medicine industry. He exploited this vulnerability of theirs by using scientific terms like “formulaic”, “clinically”, “suicidal ideation” and “cardiac hypertrophy” throughout the essay. This usage of jargon (Carroll, 2012) accompanied by him acting as an expert persuades the reader to believe in his writing.
“ Some Close Encounters of a Mental Kind ” by Stephen Jay Gould is about the tendency for our minds to ‘lie’ to ourselves because of a certain key phrase that can cause people to believe certain events happened. This can be done by altering the types of question you want the victim to hear. It can be a certain modified questions or the way the question are presented to us that can cause our answers to be slightly false.
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
Atul Gawande’s book, Being Mortal, focuses on end-of-life care for patients in the American healthcare system. Gawande includes evidence along with anecdotes from his own life surrounding his career as a surgeon and his role in helping family members navigate their own end-of-life decisions. Much of Gawande’s argument rests on the premise that while end-of-life care in the American healthcare system is heroic and equipped with the best possible advancements in medicine, it too often fails the patients it is supposed to help. A large part of Being Mortal focuses on the doctor-patient relationship (especially in the context of shared-decision making) and how we often fail to recognize the things that are most important for our elderly in their
Values of caution and knowledge coincide in driving Welch to his conclusion of overdiagnosis due to society’s enthusiasm for everything medical. Welch concludes early on that the benefit of sticking to tried and true forms of healthcare overrides the belief that
Treating the biological side of a terminal illness involves a spectrum of possible care that patient can pursue.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of mental disorders is a widely used and popular text that lists and describes the various mental disorders and the criteria that resembles each one specifically. These series of manuals have had several major problems since their introduction and the latest edition which has yet to release still faces problems in terms of validity with the scientific community. By use of a diagnostic criterion they fail to incorporate many factors such as social influences, a scientific base, and distinction between the criteria for the different disorders. These are only a few of the problems facing the DSM but they may also be the most significant.
In his encounter with a young boy, Lee Tran, who suffered from a tumor compressing his airway which obstructed his ability to breathe, Gawande discusses the sheer luck that resulted in Lee’s “tumor [shifting] rightward, [allowing] airways to both lungs to open up,” as the conflicted doctors did not pursue the safest course of treatment (Gawande 6). This anecdote validates the fact that often doctors cannot foresee the optimal course of action through the smoke of crisis and relied on essentially random chance to save the young boy’s life. Gawande sums up this experience as he admits that while there is science in the profession, there also exists “habit, intuition, and sometimes plain old guessing” (Gawande 7) - rendering the science imperfect. These qualities - habit, intuition, and “plain old guessing” are not empirical qualities proven through the scientific method but rather unquantifiable, refuting the stereotypes conferred by the myth of an infallible science and revealing the medicine is ultimately a human
Duggleby et al. (2012), admits that there were limitations as the metasynthesis of the studies included the authors assumptions which is not actual data. In addition, the report admitted that the search results contained findings based on multiple fatal illnesses and the understanding of hope might be different if it had included people with non-fatal illnesses. Houser (2012) would consider this a threat to the internal validity as there is bias involved with the author’s assumptions and the selection of only people with fatal chronic illnesses. There was no indication of any ethical violations in the meta-synthesis review.
As a cancer clinic volunteer, the daughter of an oncologist, the friend of a breast cancer survivor, and a biological enthusiast, I find the medical field of cancer and its impacts on health fascinating. The human body is so complex, yet, so fragile at the same time and I hope that through this exploration, I will witness how mathematics plays a role in science and more specifically physiology.
In the case of Mr. B’s, an investigation into the events surrounding to and leading up to his untimely death would be required. Once the problem has been identified and described, data of events are collected and formatted into a timeline. From the events, any problems in the care of the patient which may have contributed to the end result are identified and determined whether they are causative. In appendix A, the timeline of the event is outlined.
… 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?
For some reason, God had chosen to answer our prayers. The worst was behind us, yet cancer’s wake still remained. Even though it may sound strange to say, I’m thankful for the lessons that came out of that horrible time. On a daily basis, I hear my peers complain about school work or a busy schedule, and I wish I could just explain them the foolishness of their careless words. Although it may seem cliché, life is too short. Too short to waste precious time and energy on living a miserable existence. Living everyday like it’s your last became words that I lived by. There’s no time to waste dwelling on previous mistakes or past failures – you only get one life. True, these are common tropes and clichés, but people can never truly grasp their depth until life itself hangs in the
First, let’s consider the reasoning behind the patients choosing to forego extraordinary treatment for their cancer. They have decided, as Beauchamp would put it, that refusing to prolong their lives in the face of pain and suffering “neither harms nor wrongs [them] and may provide a benefit” (Beauchamp, 76). They “intend to quit life because of its bleak possibilities” (Beauchamp, 77). The doctor readily complies with their wishes out of moral, legal, and professional obligation. A choice has been made to let both patients die, as a response to their “competent and authoritative refusal of treatment” (Beauchamp 74).