The Use of Force Do doctors have power over their patients? Doctors are generally well trusted because they studied hard for the position they are in, they have more knowledge about illness than ordinary people and doctors are protected by law in case things go wrong. However this raises the question; are doctors susceptible to using force on their patients to get what they want? Doctors, like every other person, are human beings and thus they can make mistakes just like everyone else. However, when a doctor makes a mistake, it is much more serious than a fast food employee messing up your order. Doctors must follow a set of ethical guidelines in order to minimise the amount of mistakes they make. In a perfect world everyone follows the …show more content…
Doctors have to go through many years of studying and many more hours of practicing on people. These qualities make any doctor seem god-like to the eyes of everyday people. Doctors are trusted blindly and people are led to believe that doctors are always honest. In the story, The Use of Force by William Carlos Williams, the parents of Matilda question the tactics the doctor is using to properly diagnose the girl but trust that the doctor knows what he is doing and lets him use force anyway. These cases are seen all over the world as well. There have been many reported cases of doctors using force to allow patients to get treated. Some patients however, do not wish to be treated because of things like religion or preference or other reasons but doctors still treat them in order to save them from themselves. The power struggle creates anger and resentment from both parties and blurs the line between personal rights and saving lives. In an article written by Jessica Grose, doctors force a woman to have a C-Section because they believe it was in the baby’s best interest. However, the woman did not want to have the surgery performed. This led to the doctors threatening to sue the woman for possible child endangerment. The woman, in fear of possibly killing her child, sided with the health care providers even though personally she did not want to have the surgery performed. This …show more content…
Patients are forced to do what the doctor says because they are in fear of their illness and the help of someone specialized in the field will soothe them. The doctor in the story knows that there is an increasing number of cases of diphtheria, a fatal disease affecting young children and he also knows that if he does not get a diagnosis now then the girl will die in a, “bed of neglect”. It is because of this fear that the parents cooperate with the doctor and allow him to use brutal force to open the girl’s mouth. The doctor possess power over the patient already has. While the doctor is in a calm state the patient is usually gripped with fear. This fear puts the patient in a bad position because the doctor doesn’t need to worry since he doesn’t have the illness. If the doctor is ignored then the patient runs the risk of dying from a disease they could have prevented and that in itself is very powerful. The patient will blindly trust the doctor because of the slur of emotions and panic. However what will happen if all the power of the doctor was removed? Will the world be a better place? Personally I believe that there needs to be some form of authority that a doctor must possess in order for
Furthermore, when the patient's daughter arrived and asked that the transfusion be stopped, the physician did not comply. The physician argued that there was no way of knowing before the car accident and thus he was duty bound to save her life. The patient and family took matter to court as they felt not respected and violated. The court announced the physician guilty of battery. This case illustrates that such incidents can occur and with cultural experts involved at hospitals, the number of these case incidents can reduce as physicians can be explained and taught to respect patient's autonomy and preferences for their own bodies (Panico, 2017). Therefore, cultural experts should be employed in hospitals as an official policy as the population is growing and many religions need to be fully understood to avoid any privacy or religious invasion. Cultural experts will be able to provide a better patient-doctor relationship as they will be considering the patients emotions and religious beliefs with medical intervention, representing both the patient and medical
People trust doctors to save lives. Everyday millions of Americans swallow pills prescribed by doctors to alleviate painful symptoms of conditions they may have. Others entrust their lives to doctors, with full trust that the doctors have the patient’s best interests in mind. In cases such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, the Crownsville Hospital of the Negro Insane, and Joseph Mengele’s Research, doctors did not take care of the patients but instead focused on their self-interest. Rebecca Skloot, in her contemporary nonfiction novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, uses logos to reveal corruption in the medical field in order to protect individuals in the future.
At first, I believed that a patient should have the say so and get what they demand. I didn’t feel sympathetic for the health care provider one bit. I was able to look through the eyes of a physician and see the trials that they have to go through. It is not easy making the decisions that they have to make. There job is based on decisions, and most of it is the patient’s. “There will certainly be times when I will be faced with a request from a patient or patient’s representative that I will personally find morally difficult, but one that is still legally and ethically acceptable. must be very difficult to work in an area with little control over what you want to do.” (Bradley 1). Even though I do not fully understand a health care providers everyday role, I do know that they are faced with painful options. I personally feel that I can not work in this field for that exact reason. Health care providers play an extremely important role in our society, and others need to look upon
The Use of Force, written by William Carlos Williams is a story about a conflicted unnamed doctor using physical force to determine a diagnosis. The question that is brought up is whether or not the doctor’s use of force was one of ethical duty or infuriating violence. The doctor makes it his duty to save the patient, Mathilda as she does not cooperate he makes a choice to go on and use force to open her mouth to determine her diagnosis. The choice of using force isn’t necessarily the questionable part, the motive on using physical force is debatable. The ultimate question that the short story, the Use of Force asks is whether or not the doctor’s motives become one of dutiful compassion or desirable violence.
As a society we place those in the medical profession on a pedestal. They are people to be looked up to and admired. In many ways they are Gods, right here with us on earth. People put the hope and faith in doctors hoping they can perform miracles. Throughout history, doctors have indeed preformed many wonders. There were, however, some doctors that betrayed this belief and peoples trust. These doctors could be found in concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Dachau. These doctors committed unspeakable acts against the Jews and other minorities, believing that they were conducting helpful experiments. Following the holocaust, however, they were punished for their actions.
In Carlos Williams’s short story, “The Use of Force,” the doctor’s use of force is portrayed in a way that is controversial. Controversial in that it could easily be argued either that the doctor has complete reason to use force upon the girl, or that the doctor has no right to use any amount of force upon the girl without her consent. It could also be argued either that the results of the doctor’s use of force is a success or a failure. I feel that the doctor has reason to use force upon the girl in order to check her tonsils for a number of reasons. I believe this because the doctor has reason to use force because he believes that the girl has diphtheria based on his knowledge of numbers of other children at her school suffering from cases of diphtheria. I believ...
"The Use of Force" by William Carlos Williams is a window into one doctor's guilt over the negligent loss of a child patient. This story focuses on the disillusionment caused by his self-pity and guilt. The doctor's guilt triggers a fanciful illusion of "The Use of Force" that gives him giddy delight in his envisioned torture of the young, beautiful girl. His disgust for her uneducated, immigrant parents and their poor, humble surroundings only heighten this image. But his justification of these imagined actions empowers him all the more. He perceives himself above these less than human creatures, as a master lords over his good for nothing dog. In his self-empowered greatness he comes face to face with the greatest flaw any doctor can have, lack of humanity and compassion for those lesser then himself.
It is quite obvious that morals, ethics and common courtesy are not enough to encourage the respect of patients in the educational atmosphere, as is seen in the story. I believe it is the responsibility of the medical school to encourage their teachers to demonstrate ways to connect with patients rather than just teaching the anatomy of health care. Teachers are supposed to be role models for students and if they are not taught to treat patients with respect, the only way they can learn that kind of skill is the hard way; through the loss of patients because of their feelings of irrelevancy at the doctor’s office, or through the complaints of people who are unsatisfied with their quality of health care.
Not only do health care providers have an ethical implication to care for patients, they also have a legal obligation and responsibility to care for the patient. According to the Collins English dictionary, a duty of care is ‘the legal obligation to safeguard others from harm while they are in your care, using your services or exposed to your activities’. The legal definition takes it further by making it a requirement that a person act towards others and the public with watchfulness, attention, caution and prudence which a reasonable person in the circumstances would use. If a person’s actions fail to meet the required standard, then the acts are considered negligent (Hill and Hill, 2002). If a professional fails to abide to the standard of practice for their practice in regards to their peers, they leave themselves open to criticisms or claims of breach of duty of care, and possibly negligence. Negligence is comprised of five elements: (1) duty, (2) breach, (3) cause in fact, (4) proximate cause, and (5) harm. Duty is defined as the implied duty to care/provide service, breach is the lack thereof, cause in fact must be proven by plaintiff, proximate cause means that only the harm caused directly causative to the breach itself and not additional causation, and harm is the specific injury resultant from the breach.
One of the most productive and prosperous nations of the world is the United States of America. From an economical stand point, there has been an incredible amount of success for this country and an expected many more to come. However, there have also been economical stresses such as wars, recessions, and depressions. The Great Depression was perhaps the most tragic of these. William Carlos Williams connects his experience of the Great Depression through his short story “The Use of Force”.
After reading Should Doctors Tell the Truth by Joseph Collins, I started steer away from Collins views. I disagree with Collins thesis because it isn’t permissible to take control of anyone’s autonomy whether or not it’s in his or her best interest.
Sometimes doctors abuse that aspect of their profession and use it to better science. James P. Scanlan uses the argument of finding the valuable truth and scientific knowledge which is morally impossible to obtain (Pg. 55). Ramsey responds by saying, “These are salutary warnings precisely because by them we are driven to make the most searching inquiry concerning more basic ethical principles governing medical practice.” While becoming a doctor, one may feel as if they must constantly better the field of health using science. “Doctors”, Ramsey says, “Need to become moral philosophers” (Pg.55). If the doctors do not think morally, then medical ethics will slowly become scoured till there is nothing left. Granted, there are doctors and medical students who have looked at this situation from a moral perspective, but I believe, as does Ramsey, that doctors will get caught up in the “omnivorous appetite of scientific research.
During the year of 1938, there was a serious epidemic of diphtheria. A number of cases of diphtheria had happened in the school and most of the patients who had diphtheria were facing death. Therefore, doctors were in demand and they had to cure their patients in an efficient time in order to help more patients. However, in order to finish the examination quickly, the doctors sometimes would ignore their patients’ emotions easily. Therefore, it would create the conflict between the doctors and the patients. William Carlos Williams focused this problem in his story “the Use of Force”. Although the doctor in the story meant to help the sick girl Mathilda who had diphtheria, he is not justified
Doctors had power toward their patients and their interns. As it shows in the book review of The Silent World of Doctor and Patients by Jay Katz; one of the interns said “There is a hierarchy in the hospital, on the top is the attending’s, then is the Chief residence, followed by interns and lastly is the three years’ medical students” and Katz said “Patients can 't trust their physicians to act in their interests…” Patients don’t have the mentality of making a medical decision on their own like an intern can’t make a surgery without an attending watching over them. The capability a patient and intern has is very little to benefit their outcome of health and knowledge.
D’s daughter outweighs the benefits of being cured from this disease, furthermore not reporting this innocent can lead to greater harm. From a deontological view, Dr. Leigh has the duty as a physician and registered professional to report this to authorities. She feels as though she has conflicting duties, as based on her patients culture this traditional method to cure her daughter is right, but for western society it is wrong. By law it is abuse even though it’s a culture norm. Based on social contrast, laws of civil society, in western society one cannot doing this to child. It is considered child abuse, as the child’s autonomy is not respected because the infant is too young to have a say. In this case, Dr. Leigh followed her followed her intuition to not tell