If there is a serious medical situation, would you save your own health and life rather than saving the lives of other people who are at risk? Many people find it important to save the life of other people instead of their own life. They believe it is their responsibility to help those who are in need. In order to make their society better their ready to help at any cost. In the novel, A Death Struck Year by Makiia Lucier the main character, Cleo Berry including other characters sacrifices their life to help others. The article “SARS: The people who risked” by Kevin Fong is a good example of showing the sacrifices that the people can make when there is a dangerous virus outbreak. Another article, “ A Good Death Ebola and Sacrifice” by Josh …show more content…
Mugele and Chad Priest talks about the sacrifices people can make when there is a Ebola outbreak. During medical situation, people often sacrifice their own health and life in order to protect the health of family members or friends, to save the lives of strangers and to fulfill their duty as a individual for the community. In order to help family and friends, people sacrifice their own health. In the novel, the main character Cleo Berry sacrificed her own health during the Spanish Influenza to assist her family and friends. When Cleo got the telegram about Mrs.Foster’s health condition, she started to think “Lucy would insist on it, despite her condition...But if I told Jack about Mrs.Foster, if he learned I was alone they would come back anyway”. (Lucier 182) It is important for Cleo to see her family safe because they're related to her blood. She does not want her family members to come in contact with the influenza outbreak. She did not care for herself, she was ready to live alone. Cleo could have told them about Mrs.Foster but she lied saying that both she and Mrs.Foster are fine. Anything could have happened to Cleo since she was alone. She could have get infected with the Spanish influenza and their would be no family member to look after her health. Despite all these possible situations, in that time Cleo was sacrificing herself to help her brother Jack and Lucy. Not just family members, Cleo sacrificed her health to protect her friend Kate. When suddenly Kate started bleeding Cleo said, “Kate was crying, her nose still bleeding . I grabbed a clean towel from a cart and did my best to mop her off”. (Lucier 228) As a friend of KAte, Cleo was helping Kate instead of caring for her own health. Cleo put her own life at risk by aiding Kate who had got influenza. She did not even thought that she could get infected too by helping Kate. She could just stayed away from Kate. However, she did not do that because for her it was important to help Kate. Cleo was sacrificing herself even after when Kate was dead. Cleo digged Kate’s grave, “ I dug until there was blisters on my hands and mud in my hair...The sergeant insisted that I rest...I snapped at him”/ (Lucier 255) She gave more importance to Kate’s grave rather than her own health. Cleo did not wanted Kate’s body to buried late.,so she decided to do the job by herself with Edmund friend Edmund and the soldiers. Cleo did not even stop digging when she was tired. To her it was the Kate’s dead body that mattered the most rather than taking good care of herself. She made sacrifices for her housekeeper Mrs. Foster, who was like her friend. Cleo showed kindness to both Mrs. Balogh and Mrs.Foster when she said, “ Thanking her for her note. Asking to be kept informed and any assistance she could think of”. (Lucier 185) This represent the idea that how Cleo can sacrifice her own desire for her friends. In that medical situation, she needed her housekeeper the most. But instead of asking Mrs.Foster to come to her house, Cleo was worried about Mrs.Foster’s health. Cleo was also ready to help Mrs.Foster if she needed it, despite the fact that she was leaving alone. Sacrificing herself for herself for family and friends was one of the big point in Cleo’s life. However, people sacrifice themselves to protect the life of strangers other than their friends and family. During medical situations,people especially doctors and volunteers frequently sacrifice their own health to protect the health of strangers.
In the article, doctors surrendered their own health and lives to save the lives of strangers when there was a Ebola outbreak. The doctor, Brisbane was a emergency director, who sacrificed his own life to protect the lives of patients, that he did not even know. According to Mugele and Priest, “ Dr.Brisbane didn’t have to stay at JFK and continue to care for patients...with his wife and children and grandchildren. He was terrified at Ebola, and...we’d find him there, seeing his patients”. (Mugele and Chad) Dr.Brisbane did not have to do the job, but he cared for his patients. He thought it is important for him to save the lives of his patients, rather than going to his family or his own health. He sacrificed his own health to help the sick people who needed his help. Eventually he died when he got infected with Ebola. If he just stayed at his home, then he might have not been died. In the novel, Cleo Berry and Kate was two brave volunteer, who were ready to save the lives of other people without caring about their own health. Earlier in the book, when a stranger on the street got sick Cleo stated that, “We knelt on either side of him...We turned him over...Kate lifted the man’s head off the sidewalk so it rested against her skirt”. (Lucier 145) Both Cleo and Kate felt that it was important for them to save the man. Nobody came to the man except Cleo and Kate. To other people, their life was more valuable than the life of a stranger. But, Cleo and Kate did not have any concern about their health. It was like if they do not care, if they get the influenza . They offered their health to help the stranger laying on the street. When Cleo was in the hospital, she decided that she can not do this job anymore. She said, “ I looked at Kate, at Hannah, at the bucket filled with vomit, at the endless rows of patients...I asked, “May I
still borrow that blouse?” (Lucier 80) At first Cleo decided that she should quit the job, she was terrified by all the blood and smell of the medicine. But still, she decided to stay back just for the patients who are in need for help. Cleo did not worry about her own health or her own choice. She felt that she should help the strangers. Anything could have happened to Cleo’s health. Not only Cleo, but one of her friend Edmund, who was a doctor also made sacrifices for the lives of strangers. In the hospital, when Cleo and Edmond were working with patients, Cleo began to wonder when she said, “ I wondered if he had gone home to bathe and to have a few hours of sleep in his own bed...I saw my own tiredness reflected in his eyes”. (Lucier 124) This quote shows how hard Edmond works for his patients that he never had met before. He was so busy taking care of the patients that he did not take care of his own health. This might have had some affect on his health because tiredness was shown on his eyes. When Cleo went to random houses to give the people advices on how to prevent influenza, she found sick people lying on the floor. Cleo said, “ I gathered the infant...in one arm. i scoped up the boy with other. Then I spared one last look for their unconscious mother”. (Lucier 67) Cleo never did this kind of job, but unfortunately during the influenza she had to. She wanted to protect the lives of strangers who are in need of help. She should have cared for her own life too, instead of other people's lives. Cleo felt it was more important for her to save their lives. Even though she weared mask during that time, she could have get the disease anyway. But she did not leave the place, instead she helped them. People frequently makes sacrifices for strangers as well as to fulfill their duty. In the course of an outbreak, many people believe in fulfilling their duty for the community by putting their own life at risk. They make many sacrifices in order to do that. In the first article, Dr.Le Thi Quyen Mai sacrificed her own health and family during the mysterious outbreak called severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). According to Fong, “...Most of her colleagues fled, fearing for their lives. She stayed despite having a three year old daughter at home. Why? “Just a duty” she says simply”. (Fong) Dr. Le Thi was a very responsible person. She valued her work and duty more than anyone else in that dangerous time of outbreak. She was ready to sacrifice her own family because she felt it was her duty to help the sick people. The doctor was not just sacrificing her family,but her own health also. Dr.Le Thi put her own life at risk by treating the sick people. She could have fled to her house just like the other doctors, but she did not. She had no problem with offering her own life for the lives of patients. Monica Avendano is a another doctor who surrendered her own life and family to fulfil her duty. Monica wrote a note to children saying, “I’ve been exposed, I might get infected, this might kill me and if it does, don’t cry too much. I did it because I’m a physician and I’m a doctor and my duty is to look after sick people”. (Fong) To fulfil her duty, Monica made a huge sacrifice as a doctor. She wants the sick people to get better, so the community would be in a better shape too. Monica did not care for her children or her own health, Only thing she knew was that she had to do her duty at any cost. She even lost hope of her life, but still she did not stop treating the sick people in the society. In another article, Dr.Brisbane sacrificed his own life to fulfill his duty for the patients rather than for his family. As stated by Mugele and Priest, “ Clinicians like Dr.Brisbane are on the front lines and are dying as a result. They care for patients despite the risks of themselves...despite their insufficient training in infection control”. (Mugele and Priest) Dr.Sam Brisbane thought it was his duty as a doctor to help those patients who were infected by Ebola. Most people choose their family during these kind of outbreaks. They felt that it is their duty to save their family first. But in this case, Dr.Brisbane choose his patients over his family. Therefore he sacrificed his family and also gave away his life to fulfill his duty as an individual in the society. In the novel, Cleo was another brave volunteer who supported the sick people during the outbreak. It showed how Cleo can not gave up, when she said, “And tempted as I was to throw the list into the fire and be done with, I couldn’t. If not me, then who?” (Lucier 247) After her friend kate died, Cleo felt she could not handle the situation anymore. But then she realized that she has to do it because it is her duty as an individual in the society. To do that she sacrificed her own health and life time. The citizens in the society helped the patients for different reasons, but overall they sacrificed their own health and life.
The book I choose for the book talk is “Dead and gone” written by Norah McClintock, this book talks about a murder mystery of Tricey Howard. The main character of the story is Mike, an orphan whose parents got killed in a car crash. He lives with his foster father named John Riel, who was once a police officer. During a swim meet, Mike see Mr.Henderson is staring at a girl name Emily without stopping. Then he informs Emily about what happened in the community center. However, as return Emily blackmails Mike to investigate Mr. Henderson. During the investigation, Mike finds nothing suspicious, but realize Emily is the daughter of Tricey Howard. Tricey Howard was murdered years ago, but the police still haven’t find the real killer. At the meantime,
This quote centers Henrietta Lacks’ story around the same questions that have driven the Doctoring course: What does it mean to care for others? And how do we ensure that we care for our patients first as people, rather than as a disease? In many ways, Henrietta Lacks’ story is a textbook case in how not to be a good physician. In examining and learning from her story through the lens of Doctoring, we can inform our own practice and
The health professionals were supposed to protect and provide care and treatment to those suffering, in this case from syphilis. Those professionals had taken oaths, but instead they did immoral and illegal things. The health professionals were supposed to help to treat the subject’s disease because it was treatable but ended up causing even more suffering for them for years by watching the experiment subjects suffer and die without any treatment. Miss Ever was torn, yet continued to help Dr. Brodus, the physician that supposedly was treating patients in need but ended up killing slowly them without medication. Eunice urged her boy friends to continue the study, in the hope of future treatment, but the treatment never came, even though the antidote, penicillin, had become available. I, the audience, watched Miss Evers struggle throughout the story with the pros and cons of her choices and decisions. On one hand, she wants to support the experiment; yet, on the other, she wants to protect and comfort her friends. At one point, she stole penicillin to help one of her boys, but he ended up killing himself because of his excruciating suffering for decades. So American citizens, because of the experiment, did not put any trust because of the complicity and lack of affirmative care of medical professionals in America’s public health
In May Miller’s Poem “Death is not Master” the persona explains that death is not the master that will increase the desperation but it is a way to become eternally calm. Many poems on the topic of death explain it as powerful thing that fears the existence of human beings, but Miller’s persona death is a way to achieve eternal serenity. She explains death as something that can end all the worldly tears, desires and tension and transform the human memory into a sculpture which is unaware of tensions. Miller’s persona believes that blocking death will be unfair as it will be a barrier to the everlasting happiness and calmness that lies inside the grave. Miller’s persona is an elaboration of Christian beliefs that death ends all worldly problems
For instance, the crux represented in each chapter of Gawande’s novel is that physicians save lives. For centuries physicians have abided by the Hippocratic Oath, in essence stating that the individual will prevent, cure, and/or save the life of a patient to the best of their ability. With no doubt is this noticed throughout every portion of the book. This can be seen when Gawande explains the development of obstetrics, the tools used in childbirth, and how infant death rates through childbirth decreased. Additionally, another example of doctors at their finest when saving patients is shown when a Cincinnati hospital did everything in its power to increase the average life expectancy of cystic fibrosis patients. Although these cases show excellent performances in saving lives, every physician takes the Hippocratic Oath to state their willingness to help patients no matter what the cost
During a pandemic in India, a doctor did exploits and was praised by other team members as Fink narrates: “Colleagues credited her quick thinking with saving lives” (p.472). The respect for the person and his or her dignity is at the core of the nursing practice. The registered nurse, as a member of the discipline of nursing should always remember before any action, this strong ethical piece: First, do no harm.
As selfish as it might sound, the decision of ending your life to avoid suffering is more about ending the suffering of your loved ones. It is way more painful to watch your family being sad, crying, getting frustrated and tired because there is nothing else they could do. As much as family tries to hide their distress, or as much as they try to avoid thinking about the inevitable, sometimes the feelings can't be avoid. I wouldn't want my family to go through this, and I wouldn't want to watch them being miserable. It is just not fair for them. Why wait longer for something that will eventually happen, especially when the patient is bed bound and has to depend on others for the most basic needs. I couldn't and wouldn't want to do that to my loved ones and to myself.
Preston goes further into the errors made by the people at Yambuku hospital, with Nurse Mayinga. Preston writes “She knew she was becoming sick, but she did not want to admit to herself what it was” (100). Mayinga had contracted the virus when she had gotten in contact with Sister M.E.. Instead of going into the hospital that Nurse Mayinga worked at, she decided to head into the city and seek aid from other hospitals.
When the doctor is sent away, his wife fakes the disease to follow him to the asylum. Being the only known eyewitness after the epidemic hits, the doctor’s wife soon becomes the leader of their ward group. Due to the complex circumstances they are in, she gains a strong sense of responsibility and helps the others in any way she can. She serves their needs as well as trying to maintain some stability in the ward. She is however unable to prevent the deterioration of humanity that quickly begins to happen once everyone is isolated from the world. When ward 3 begins to exchange food for sex, she kills the leader of the group and prevents more criminal acts from occurring. On page 192, she says to herself ‘’When is it necessary to kill? When something that is alive is already dead." She reasons her actions by saying that he had lost his humanity anyways, he was already dead due to the fact that he had lost his morals and values.
A doctor’s job is to save people. However, they cannot be given the title of being God like because they do not have the power of giving and taking away life. Similarly, Fitz tries to save Mr. Amiel’s life in “Night Flight”, but fails to do so. This short story exemplifies how the course of nature can not be stopped for any reasons. Although, Fitz knew from before that Mr.Amiel was not going to live long he still decides to complete his duty in the chance of him surviving. Fitz says, “I say that this is an unfortunate case, and obviously Dr. Manolas has done everything in his power” (Lam 246). Regardless of knowing Mr. Amiel is dying and is in serious condition, Fitz takes him on the plane. Despite the effort, Fitz knows the chances of Mr. Amiel surviving are low and therefore tries to consult Mrs. Amiel. He says, “‘He is physically delicate’, I say. I try to continue, to explain specifics. I want to clear my conscience by mention...
When situations arise and people die or become ill a value has to be placed on their life to determine if they are going to be healed or if their family is going to be compensated for their loss. The value of life has a variety of interpretations based on the approach a person decides to take. Some people think of human life with an economic point of view which can led to certain deceased citizens receiving more money for accidents than others. The economic view also says that if a surgery is going to cost the government to much money then the person who needs the surgery should not get it. On the other hand, some people look at it emotionally and say that everyone should get an equal amount of money for incidents that occur. People who look
Chronicle of a Death Foretold In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the narrator tells us that two people were responsible for the death of Santiago Nasar, however the narrator is wrong. Ignorance killed Santiago Nasar. There are three specific townsfolk responsible for the murder; Leandro Pornoy, Divina Flor, and Colonel Lazaro Aponte. Each of these three people had an equal opportunity to stop the murder; however each person’s ignorance caused them to fail in their duty as a fellow citizen. It was their duty after they heard of the Vicario brothers’ plot to kill Santiago
Death and Grieving Imagine that the person you love most in the world dies. How would you cope with the loss? Death and grieving is an agonizing and inevitable part of life. No one is immune from death’s insidious and frigid grip. Individuals vary in their emotional reactions to loss.
Furthermore, the fact that, compared to the majority of the population, the writer is still young implies that the writer’s decision must have been even harder as, with still more than 60 years of life to go, the writer had to understand that ‘[one] will die when [one] dies’. This obvious yet mature thoughts during the writer’s own personal and first experience of registering as a donor successfully compels the reader to do what the writer simply asks of by creating an air of empathy for the writer
Doctors say they should always preserve their lives. Before I read this play I agree with this statement. Now, my opinion has changed.