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Dilemmas about euthanasia
Dilemmas about euthanasia
Reflection on euthanasia
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In this book, the reader gets a closer look into what the end of care looks like from a medical perspective. The author provides a variety of different stories about patients that he worked with. The author also talks about his father throughout the book and his end of life journey. He goes from story to story as he always connects back to his personal connection with the end of life process he experienced with his father. Even as a medical doctor, things were still challenging. Each story is a little bit different and unique. There are some about older people who have lived long lives and then their bodies start to fail and some stories about younger people who have are diagnosed with cancer or other terminal illnesses. Altogether, this book …show more content…
The choices that these families face are in fact extremely difficult and may take a lot of time. The focus on making sure that the loved one is comfortable and doing what they want is stressed throughout the book. It is also mentioned how doctors and medical professionals provide the options for patients and their end of life care but how these conversations are difficult for doctors as well. Finding the balance of being too emotional or emotionless, too pushy or not pushy enough. These are some challenges that people face as they choose how they want to live the rest of their final days. The author provides a lot of stories that deal with very different cases but a theme within these cases is making sure that the patient gets what they want in the end. That they get to accomplish their goal. Whether that be not feeling pain or getting to teach piano lessons one last time to their students. Hospice and other services are also mentioned and how these services provide …show more content…
No matter if you are 85 or 35 years old, it is going to be a hard conversation that impacts a lot of people. Although, the person who’s life is ending is the most important person in this conversation and you would think that would be obvious. The perspectives of family members who aren’t ready to see their loved one die or even the perspective of a doctor who is doing what they think is best, may not be what the patient wants. This point is so crucial, even though it might be tough to talk about, it is important to do so. The final wishes of someone should be honored and everyone involved should have that
Final Gifts, written by hospice care workers, Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelly, includes various stories detailing each of their life changing experiences that they encountered with their patients. Hospice care allows the patient to feel comfortable in their final days or months before they move on to their next life. This book contains the information considered necessary to understand and deal with the awareness, needs, and interactions of those who are dying. Not only are there stories told throughout the book, there are also tips for one to help cope with knowing someone is dying and how to make their death a peaceful experience for everyone involved. It is important that everyone involved is at as much peace as the person dying in the
God tells his children, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation). Death is one of the most frightening and confusing times a person can go through. Watching a loved one pass away is also one of the hardest trials a person can experience. Many people assume that death is a time of pain and the only thing that they can do is mourn and watch their loved one fade away from the earth. This is wrong. There are ways that people can turn a bad situation to good. Dying doesn’t have to be painful and full of suffering. The County Hospice staff makes sure of this. The Hospice staff not only takes care of passing patients physically, but they also take care of the patients emotionally and spiritually. Hospice staff also plays a key role in helping families during the grieving process.
When making decisions regarding treatment of another person, it is important to respect the expressed wishes of the individual. John says that his mother would want to live as long as she could, but questions arise related to her quality of life and perception of prolonged suffering by prolonging the dying process. The book states that quality of life changes throughout one’s life and experiences.
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.
The decision to end a life is a difficult one no matter the situation presented. It stirs a great deal of emotions when thinking about a loved one choosing to die in situations where they are terminally ill. Death is a scary thought for most people, but we need to remember that it is just a fact of life, no matter how morbid it sounds. There is some dignity in ending a life for a patient is who terminally ill and suffering, although it may be a tough decision, it can sometimes be the right one.
Being in hospice care is a better alternative than being stuck in the hospital to try to avoid the unavoidable. Common misconceptions about Hospice could include that hospice makes life more miserable; however, a physician expressed his findings in Hospice,“You can only fail a patient if you fail to understand and respond to their needs. We may not be able to cure all of our patients, but if we can make them comfortable in the last moments of their lives, we will not have failed them”..Hospice care gradually emerged in the 1970s, when groups like the National Hospice Organization were formed “in response to the unmet needs of dying patients and their families for whom traditional medical care was no longer effective.”Herbert Hendin, an executive director of the American Suicide Foundations illustrates a story of a young man diagnosed with acute myelocytic leukemia and was expected to have only a few months before he died. He persistently asked the doctor to assist him, but he eventually accepted the medical treatment. His doctor told him he can use his time wisely to become close to his family. Two days before he died, Tim talked about what he would have missed without the opportunity for a
Thanks in part to the scientific and technological advances of todays’ society, enhanced medicinal treatment options are helping people battle illnesses and diseases and live longer than ever before. Despite these advances, however, many people with life threatening illnesses have needs and concerns that are unidentified and therefore unmet at the end of life, notes Arnold, Artin, Griffith, Person and Graham (2006, p. 62). They further noted that when these needs and concerns remain unmet, due in part to the failure of providers to correctly evaluate these needs, as well as the patients’ reluctance to discuss them (p. 63, as originally noted by Heaven & Maguire, 1997), a patient’s quality of life may be adversely affected. According to Bosma et al. (2010, p. 84), “Many generalist social work skills regarding counseling, family systems, community resources, and psychosocial assessments are relevant to working with patients and families with terminal illness”, thereby placing social workers in the distinctive position of being able to support and assist clients with end of life decisions and care planning needs. In fact, they further noted that at some point, “most social work practitioners will encounter adults, children, and families who are facing progressive life limiting illness, dying, death, or bereavement” (p. 79).
Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families. London: Routledge, 2009. Print.
The care of patients at the end of their live should be as humane and respectful to help them cope with the accompanying prognosis of the end of their lives. The reality of this situation is that all too often, the care a patient receives at the end of their life is quite different and generally not performed well. The healthcare system of the United States does not perform well within the scope of providing the patient with by all means a distress and pain free palliative or hospice care plan. To often patients do not have a specific plan implemented on how they wish to have their end of life care carried out for them. End of life decisions are frequently left to the decision of family member's or physicians who may not know what the patient needs are beforehand or is not acting in the patient's best wishes. This places the unenviable task of choosing care for the patient instead of the patient having a carefully written out plan on how to carry out their final days. A strategy that can improve the rate of care that patients receive and improve the healthcare system in general would be to have the patient create a end of life care plan with their primary care physician one to two years prior to when the physician feels that the patient is near the end of their life. This would put the decision making power on the patient and it would improve the quality of care the patient receives when they are at the end of their life. By developing a specific care plan, the patient would be in control of their wishes on how they would like their care to be handled when the time of death nears. We can identify strengths and weakness with this strategy and implement changes to the strategy to improve the overall system of care with...
Death alone is a scary thought to most individuals. People who live their life in fear of death don’t really get the most out of life. Someone who is terminally ill would be in a similar situation. There are two ways to live life after being diagnosed terminally ill. One way would be to get the most out of what remains of the person’s life. This would be considered the positive outcome. In the story “Letter from a Sick Person” the narrator recently has been informed he is terminal. Instead of panicking or being upset he embraces it. He accepts that his death is unavoidable and it gives him a brand new meaning in his life. He states, “In journeys, the greatest grief is hidden”. This life explains while he is not exactly happy he has discovered a way to cope with his illness. He feels as if it was his time stating, “I tell you I wanted death to come like a captain and carry me off”. Even in his death he knew that it wasn’t him who would be forced to overcome his death but the people left
The concept between life and death cannot simply exist without one another, where the topic is widely discussed throughout “When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi. This memoir explores Paul’s definition of death as he passes through the distinct “stages” of his life. As Paul progresses through each stage, he views death differently as he transformed from a student to a neurosurgeon, neurosurgeon to a patient, and eventually becoming a father, where he needed to take full responsibility as an adult.
They consult with their family and friends to decide what the best route of action is. For instance, Jeff Sutherland, a physician, who is diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) later in his career choose to live even with his terminal illness that will eventually lead to death. Nevertheless, “Should my circumstances change, I find comfort the fact I can now choose a gentle and humane death surrounded by loved ones on my own terms”(Sutherland 115). Often most terminally ill patients do not even choose physician-assisted suicide. According to the American Medical Association, “1 in 6 terminally ill patients talks with their families, 1 in 50 talks with their physician, and only 1 in 500 directly accesses this option.” Physician-assisted suicide for the most part is a way a patient can feel at ease. Knowing they do not have to endure suffering at the end of their
The book gives a couple of examples of those who sustained the appropriate death; Senator Hubert H. Humphrey and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Remaining the same person when going through death is a very healthy sign. Those who remain calm and unaffected by the event that will take place seem to not go through five stages of death, they seem to only go through one stage and that is acceptance. In the appropriate death the patient is dying as he or she wishes. There is a short story on page 48 that is a true story and talks about a patient’s experience where at one point she did not have an appropriate death because her physician had the say so as to whether she lived or not. They claimed that no one recovers from her situation and that she would not be able to tell if she is hungry or in pain herself. The narrative talks vaguely about her family, but taking someone’s life on account of a non-relative seems like the four characteristics of an appropriate death are not achieved. Those characteristics are awareness, acceptance, proprietary, and timeliness. The family and the patient were robbed of good and appropriate death. Those who are performing life threatening jobs and have families are putting their families more at risk for emotional damage because when a death happens too quickly the dying is not cared for and when the dying is cared for by families it allows them to have time to cope with the tragic events that have happened. It wouldn’t affect the person who died because they are already gone. People have to think not only of their own problems when they give up or do not care what happens to them, but for those who they will be “leaving” behind. It can cause unimaginable grief if someone’s life was taken away in an
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.
When initially reading this assignment I thought it would have been easier for me to come up with five questions since I have worked in a nursing home for many years and worked as hospice aide for two years and have been very comfortable with end of life care. However, it wasn’t as easy as I thought the five wishes handbook I thought it did an excellent job at discussing a lot of issues and concerns that arise when someone is at the end of their life. When thinking back to all the families I have been privileged enough to help during that time in their lives I was able to create five more questions I thought would be necessary to ask.