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Ageism in the health care system
Chapter 6 medicine and ethics
Ageism in the health care system
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Atul Gawande, the writer of Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, is a surgeon and a professor at Harvard Medical School. This is an inspiring book that unwraps people’s mind to scrutinize and question our current practice of medicine and care.
The flow and organization of the topics are structured chronologically and easy for readers to have a clear depiction of the progression of the book. He explains and elaborates his ideas and assumptions on struggles with morality, through real voices of patients and his own personal encounter. The first few topics were lighthearted, more on procedural terms such as the demographics of care in the United States and India and the evolution of care. This heightens to themes that are close to one’s heart as he uncovers the relationship amongst medicine, patient, and the family. It also deliberates on the concerns after medicine becomes impotent and society is ill-equipped for the aging population, which highlight the decisions and conversations one should or might have pertaining to death. He makes
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Even if we hold such conversations, would people be less passive, dare to seek the truth in their health and speak of what is significant in their lives? Medicine has ironically brought older adults closer to health institutions, where they see these homes as odious and see themselves as abandoned. If I must be scrupulous, it would be having to postulate concrete examples on the environment and resources for the older adults, perhaps through nationwide initiative or authorize advance medical directives compulsory. Most crucially, to instill the philosophy of assisted care in a positive light and not as alienation. With that, it could lessen the negative connotations on how the elders perceive themselves in the assisted
The writing style of the author is quite interesting to me. Atul Gawande’s honesty, a major aspect of his writing style, beautifully highlights the good and bad of any medical profession. For example, Gawande’s argument over the use of patients for resident training
All creatures on earth just want to live very long, and the human has more avid than any other creature on our planet. The patients having critical diseases want to prolong their lives, so they want to believe in doctors and modern medical system. I believe that they want to live because they still have a lot of things that they have to do, or they don’t want to make their family feel upset when they pass away. Moreover, their family have too many expectations of the medical treatments and the doctors, but the results are always negative. My close friend’s family is an example. When his grandmother’s diabetes was in the last period, she had to get some surgeries because her feet were gangrenous. After that surgeries, she told she feels very painful and just wants to die, but she does not want to make her family feel bad. Therefore, she had suffered her painful with an expectation prolonging her life on a hospital bed. Many people nearing the end of their lives have to suffer many medical treatments looking like a mortification. “Many people think of CPR as a reliable life save when, in face, the results are usually poor,” written by the author, has demonstrated for that examples. In addition, the doctors are the second factor that affects to the decision using medical treatments. All of the doctors just want to try their best to cure the patients, and they want to help the
The Dying of the Light is an article by Dr. Craig Bowron that captures the controversy surrounding the role of medication in prolonging life. The author describes that many medical advancements have become a burden to particularly elderly patients who in most instances are ready to embrace the reality of death. Dr. Bowron believes that dying in these modern times has become a tiring and unnatural process. “Everyone wants to grow old and die in his or her sleep, but the truth is most of us will die in pieces,” Bowron notes (Bowron). The article does not advocate for euthanasia or the management of health care costs due to terminal or chronic illness. Bowron faults humanity for not embracing life and death with dignity as it was in the past. He blames the emergence of modern medical advances and democracy as the sole reason why everyone is pursuing immortality or prolonging of life rather than embracing the natural course of things. The article is very articulate and comes out rather persuasive to its target audience that happens to be health-conscious. Craig Bowron uses effective rhetorical strategies such as logos, ethos, and pathos to pass on his message. The article’s credibility is impeccable due to the author’s authority in health matters as he is a hospital-based internist. A better placed individual to dissect this issue by analyzing his experiences in the healthcare profession. The article incorporates a passionate delivery that appeals to the readers’ hopes, opinions, and imagination.
Atul Gawande is, undoubtedly, one of the biggest names in medicine today. He has written four New York Times Bestsellers and is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and the New York Times. It’s his books (Complications, Better, The Checklist Manifesto, and Being Mortal), though, that I would love to talk to him about.
The medical field is designed to save lives and this article “No Risky Chances,” by Author Atul Gawande’s published in the online magazine Slate, reminds medical professionals one very important thing that there is no risky chances my determining treatment options, professionals need to consider options, professionals need to consider options, professionals need to consider options that are aligned with the patients personal choice which can range from maintaining life by any means necessary to continued comfort until death. Either way it is important for medical staff to be trained not only in saving life’s but also in preparing for patient death.
The approach of physician-assisted suicide respects an individual’s need for personal dignity. It does not force the terminally ill patient to linger hopelessly, and helplessly, often at great cost to their psyche. It drive’s people mad knowing they are going to die in a short period of time, suffering while they wait in a hospital bed.
Miller discuses many themes concerning death and illness. It has come to be that society view illness as a time of suffering and burden, where families and individuals are afraid of becoming sick with a chronic illness because of all the pain and suffering that comes along with it. Illness has become about prolonging life with a multitude of excess problems and a more painful life. Families and caregivers become overburdened while the patient suffers while wishing their illness to be anything but a burden to their caregivers. Death in our society is viewed very differently to different people within different settings. In a hospital for instance, death is treated as an emptiness. The existence of bright rooms, white floors, machines ringing, and tied up tubes as a patient dies is very mechanical and represents a businesslike experience as the patient is immediately forgotten after they die while their bodies are quickly shuffled out the door to make room for the next chronically ill patient. Society today views death and illness with unease and apprehension because of the fear around it where people view the hospital environment as a place for acute trauma and illness not a place of healing where one can die with dignity. On the other hand, death in places like Dr. Millers Zen Hospital have developed rituals around topic so when a patient dies there is recognition of the patient’s individuality as a human being. The Zen hospital’s rituals involve
Taking care of the individuals that are getting older takes many different needs. Most of these needs cannot be given from the help of a family. This causes the need of having to put your love one into a home and causing for the worry of how they will be treated. It is important for the family and also the soon to be client to feel at home in their new environment. This has been an issue with the care being provided for each individual, which has lead to the need of making sure individuals have their own health care plan.
In Shapiro’s poem, the person expressed how his loved one’ suffering had turned to cause him pain as well. The persona was disturbed by the patients suffering and pain to a point of lacking sleep. In the piece, “The Care of the Patient,” by Pearbody (1927), he says that doctors should aim at developing an intimate relationship with their patients, including knowing the patients right from their home surroundings. This is the first step towards learning the conditions of the patients’ loved ones and understanding how best to help them in their suffering. However, minding the suffering of the patient’s loved ones does not mean that doctors owe anything to them. Doctors should only give their best, treating patients from their hearts. A doctor should, however, always tell the truth to both patients and their loved ones even when healing is not an option. If no cure is available, doctors should instead of giving false hopes to patients and their loved one, try to prepare them to accept death as an unavoidable eventuality. This according to me, can relieve some of the unnecessary fear and
The purpose of this essay is to analyse various theories on ageing, death, dying, and end of life issues from different perspectives such as: biophysiological theories, psychosocial theories; and taking in consideration the cultural, historical, and religious implications around the aforementioned life stages. One will also discuss important issues relevant to social work practice such as dignity, autonomy, and their relationship with the concept of a successful ageing and a good death. One considers these areas important since they upheld anti-discriminatory practice and may perhaps promote the development of personalised care pathways, as well as fair and justifiable social policies.
An important step to decrease an ageist attitude is to take a step back and recognize biases and preconceived ideas that one has about older adults (DeBrew, 2015). Recognizing biases in combination with furthering one’s education about the effects of aging and the specific needs of older adults will help increase compassionate care. To allow for effective interventions it is important that the nurse understand that illness and infection manifest differently in older adults than they do in the younger population (DeBrew, 2015). In addition, through ethnographic study it was found that when nurses spend time doing activities with older adults it helps strengthen relationships and sense of community between care providers and elderly patients (DeBrew, 2015). According to the article, “occupational therapists who worked with older adults felt ‘stigmatized’ by their peers because their work was viewed as less challenging and requiring less skill and intellect than caring for other populations” (DeBrew, 2015). To promote compassionate patient care it is important that nurses and other professionals get support from their peers to confirm that their work is not insignificant and looked down upon. Finally, include the older adult while creating the plan of care to show them that they are a valued part of their healthcare
As medical procedures and techniques have become more advanced, doctors are able to do much more to try and save a patient's life (Warriach). In some cases, however, this process is only delaying the inevitable and causing the patient even more suffering. If euthanasia were legal, patients could willingly choose to end this long process of torment, specifically in terminal cases where both would lead to the same result: death. In a hospital, a patient's life gets dragged on despite the condition by medical tools and devices such as respirators (Warriach). The only way to cease the patient’s anguish is by ending all means of life support. If euthanasia were presented as an option, it would save the patient, along with their family, from immense pain and
The subject of death and dying is a common occurrence in the health care field. There are many factors involved in the care of a dying patient and various phases the patient, loved ones and even the healthcare professional may go through. There are many controversies in health care related to death, however much of it roots from peoples’ attitudes towards it. Everyone handles death differently; each person has a right to their own opinions and coping mechanisms. Health care professionals are very important during death related situations; as they are a great source of support for a patient and their loved ones. It is essential that health care professionals give ethical, legal and honest care to their patients, regardless of the situation.
In this specific case the father of the severe ill child, took her life under acknowledgement of her intense pain and incurable health condition. For Kant, the good moral act is based on the ability and possibility of the universalization of a determined conduct or action that is led by a natural human Good Will. We can see Kant’s own thought condensed in some of today’s bioethical and medical deontology; being a normative ethical system, supported on the ideal of what should be (free choice field) more than what it is (nature and physics laws), we face the reality of death as part of life, and human life as value in itself. In fact, we have been witnessed dilemmas, so how medical codes have arisen, being more specific and involving in more complex we cannot just trust in a system based on a fixed code, but to analyze each case, from a set of universally accepted principles, stablish the basis of procedure, in the studied case for example in the best possible and merciful way to terminate the life of an extreme suffering human
Everyone has or will experience a loss of a loved one sometime in their lives. It is all a part of the cycle of life and death. The ways each person copes with this loss may differ, but according to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s novel On Death and Dying, a person experiences several stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and, finally, acceptance. There is no set time for a person to go through each stage because everyone experiences and copes with grief differently. However, everyone goes through the same general feelings of grief and loss. There are also sections in Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet” that connect to the process of grieving: “On Pain,” “On Joy and Sorrow,” and “On Talking.” Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet” reflects on Kübler-Ross’s model of the different stages of grief and loss.