More handpicked essays just for you.
Patient clinician communication 7 principles
Legal and ethical issues surrounding physician-assisted suicides
Legal and ethical issues surrounding physician-assisted suicides
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The film titled WIT, included events that occurred from the time of cancer diagnosis for Dr. Vivian Bearing, the explanation and choice of treatment options, what Dr. Bearing experienced emotionally and physically through the course of treatment, deciding that she did not want to be resuscitated if cardiac arrest occurred, to the final days leading to her death. Dr. Bearing was diagnosed with ovarian cancer which went undetected during stages one through three. Dr. Kelekian proposed a treatment option that was being researched as it was used as an aggressive chemotherapeutic treatment for cancer beyond stage three (Nichols, 2001). After a brief description of this treatment was offered to Vivian and no other options were presented, she gave …show more content…
They have a right to access and read their medical records and a right to refuse treatment. Patients also have the right to make decisions regarding end of life care (Torrey, 2016). 3 b. What inference can you make about patient advocacy in this film? The only person that demonstrated patient advocacy or made an attempt to do so was the nurse. Susie attempted to advocate for Dr. Bearing by suggesting to Dr. Kelekian to lower the dosage of the treatment and expressing concern for her health and distress. She also advocated for Dr. Bearing by informing Dr. Kelekian that Dr. Bearing was in severe pain and suggesting patient controlled analgesia rather than continuous Morphine. Susie advocated for Dr. Bearing one last time after she went into cardiac arrest by informing Dr. Poser and other healthcare staff that she had a DNR order (Nichols, 2001). FILM REVIEW 5 3 c. Discuss the concept of breaking bad news and communicating effectively and therapeutically with terminally ill patients. It is important to be honest with patients and their families. Therapeutic communication requires active listening, showing empathy, touching if appropriate, and asking open-ended questions …show more content…
Dr. Bearing felt like just another patient or more like a diagnosis instead of a human being with thoughts and feelings because some of the staff did not attempt to speak to her other than ask for her name before performing FILM REVIEW 6 diagnostic testing. The technician that performed one of the x-rays left her alone in the procedure room while he took a break. This made Dr. Bearing feel like her wellbeing and preferences were not important to the technician because he put his own needs and desires before hers. Another example from the film that showed unprofessional behavior included when Dr. Poser was unorganized and forgot some things when preparing to perform an exam. This may have caused Dr. Bearing to lose confidence and trust in him. He also left her in the lithotomy position while he went down the hall to find a nurse. It was not the safest position or most comfortable position to leave her in (Nichols, 2017). 5. Discuss the role of nursing in maintaining privacy, dignity, and pain relief for the terminally ill patient. Promoting patient dignity includes respecting them as a person and not as a diagnosis. It
...ical necessities and furthermore cannot trust any doctor anymore because people in Hopkins took her tissues and cells and exploited them.
Physicians face an ethical dilemma when confronting their patients who are suffering. Many have to choose between abiding by the law or ignoring the law and acting on their own beliefs by assisting in a patient’s suicide. Dr. Jack Kevorkian is certainly one doctor who has taken the illegal route in assisting in many of his patients suicides. In “Killer Doc,” William F. Buckley provides a brief overview of the case and informs his audience of the shocking incidents of Kevorkian’s performed euthanasia on Thomas Youk. In “Offering a Helping Hand to those Who Long to Die,” Mark Nichols compares the famous euthanasia doctors, Dr. Kevorkian and Austrailia’s Dr. Philip Nitschke.
Lessenberry, Jack. "In Latest Suicide Trial, Kervorkian Asserts 'Duty as a Doctor'." Newsweek. May, 1996: 16.
Jack Kevorkian was a doctor who assisted terminally ill patients to commit suicide. He believed that they had the right to die in an appropriate way; to die with dignity. He therefore invented a machine (called thanatron—a Greek word for death machine) which could take away his patients’ lives painlessly and efficiently, all they had to do was to push a button and their lives would be ended by either deadly injection or carbon monoxide poisoning. There had been at least one hundred patients who tried and died in this method. Dr. Kevorkian was charged several times with murder in these deaths. Lucky for him, a judge dismissed one of his charges because there was no evidence of murder. Jury did not find him guilty either. Nevertheless, he received numerous critics from medical professionals and media. Some people considered him as a hero while others saw him as an evil person. Not few questioned his intention; did he really care about ending his patients’ sufferings? Now that the “Dr. Death” died, all of this debate probably doesn’t matter anymore. But if it was up to me, I would most definitely not going to let him go with this easily because the way I see it, what he did was not right.
Schneider Keith, “DR. Jack Kevorkian Dies at 83; A Doctor who helped End Lives”. The New York Times. Arthur Sulzberger Jr. 3, June 2011. Online Newspaper 2014
In “ Sounding Board Death and Dignity, A Case of Individualized Decision Making” by Timothy E. Quill talks about a patient of his named Diane. An ordinary person but has struggled with alcoholism and depression. Quill then, with vigorous testes, finds out she has acute leukemia. Now knowing this, Quill and other doctors advised Diane about undergoing treatment as soon as possible. But she refused and just wanted to go home and be with her family. Though at this time she was not experiencing any suffering as ...
Only people who have witnessed or experienced a terminal illness know how much it impacts a person’s life and their families. According to the Cancer Facts and Figures, in 2015, there was an estimate of 1,658,370 people who were diagnosed with cancer and 589,430 of those diagnosed with cancer had died (American Cancer Society). Medication evolves every day, yet there is little to do for cancer patients. They can go through various treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy, however some patients these treatments are unbearable. In four states, physician assisted suicide is legal, many other states are debating on the issue at hand. States that have not legalized assisted suicide is due to it being considered murder and can result in imprisonment and doctor license revoked. There has been recent debates involving whether or not physician assisted suicide should be legalized because it is considered murder. Legalizing assisted suicide does not only provide an option to terminally ill patients, but gives others an option. Although some argue that physician assisted suicide should not be legalized, proponents argue that physician assisted suicide should allow options for the patients that are not suffering.
Since the patient is not able to give informed consent it should be noted that George’s spouse should be the one to determine the best course of action. It would be up to his wife, Helen, to decide what should be done about continuing or discontinuing treatment. If she decides to respect George’s wishes, then treatment will cease. But the renal dialysis will resume if she chooses to ignore George’s request. This is only true if George is unable to achieve competency, such as treating his depression and then reevaluating if he still believes he should no longer be treated with renal dialysis to end his
In June 1990, there was a large spark of this issue of mercy killing and assisted suicide when Dr. Jack Kevorkian assisted Janet Adkins a patient in suicide. This debate later on sky rocketed in March 1991 when a doctor, Timothy Quill also came clean to his assistance in the professional suicide of Diane Trumbull. From here, a large number of public events followed regarding physici...
“In 1999, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a Michigan physician known for openly advertising that he would perform assisted suicide despite the fact that it was illegal, was convicted of second-degree murder” (Lee). The fact of the matter is human being...
Cotton, Paul. "Medicine's Position Is Both Pivotal And Precarious In Assisted Suicide Debate." The Journal of the American Association 1 Feb. 1995: 363-64.
I believe the nurse was concerned about the facility rules and regulation more than the patient's suffering. She did not care about the dying 87-year-old lady that really needed her help. After all, the purpose of nursing is to help take care of patient at critical moments like this. I was actually shocked to see the nurse refuse to care for the suffocating patient. I do not think her reasoning has to do with respects patient autonomy at the moment.
The American Nurses Association Code of Ethics for Nurses has five elements that pertain to the Principle of Autonomy. Each individual element applies to “respect individual persons” (Baillie, McGeehan, Garrett T, M., Garrett R. M., 2013, p.33). In Chapter 2 of the Health Care ethics: Principles and problems text, it discusses thouroghly the consent of an individual to make their own decisions regarding their health and future requests of care. As a nurse or within all heath care professions, we must treat each individual patient with care, respect, and to remain mindful to the patient regarding any aspect of their lives. In the ANA Code of Ethics for Nurses, it explains ways of maintaining the empathy required in the health field. It further discusses that the respect for human dignity must be a priority, relationships to patients must remain neutral, the severity of the situation, the right to self-rule, and the professionalism that must be upheld by the nurse and their associates.
• Setting – It’s not actually mentioned, but it is implied that it at the Olson’s house, a doctor is called to look at the daughter as she is not feeling well.
her husband, who is in fact a doctor, who is ordering her to take total