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Essays on physician assisted suicide
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No Good Deed Scholarly Paper This paper will talk about the book No Good Deed and how there are many ethical dilemmas that healthcare providers deal with every day. Each day there are ethical issues that arise, especially when caring for terminally ill patients. The book No Good Deed talks about how two nurses struggle with a situation that is far too common in healthcare today. Despite the literature about end of life care, it still remains an issue for many providers and patients. Nurses are lead to deal with multiple ethical issues seen in the book No Good Deed. After reading the book No Good Deed one is able to see how literature about end of life care is viewed and how beneficence plays are large role in nursing care. No Good Deed Summary The book No Good Deed is about two nurses who take care of patients who are terminally ill. Kim and Amy are both nurses on a renal unit in a hospital and take care of patients who no longer wish to receive dialysis. While they were young they both had experienced seeing or caring for a loved one how suffered a tragic or long death. The two nurse’s work with a nurse’s aid named Olga. The three ladies worked together each day caring for these patients at the near end of their lives. All seems to be going …show more content…
well until Olga accuses that Kim and Amy overdosed one of their patients, Rose, with morphine which lead to her death. The story then begins to be explained that Olga noticed that Kim and Amy had been taking morphine out and not wasting it the way that they should. Olga has a strong faith and is very troubled by thinking that these two nurses could kill these women intentionally. Amy and Kim are confronted by the police and are thoroughly questioned about every detail that could have led to them giving Rose more morphine that what was ordered. The nurses did mention that they thought the dose was too small and tried to get the dose increased but none of the residents felt they she needed it. Olga thought certain measures should have been done to help make her more comfortable such as use oxygen but she did not have the knowledge that due to her emphysema it would not help. The police question the women and many pervious stories about other cases like this were discussed. The book began to go into detail about what dialysis is and what it really means to stop dialysis.
The discussion about what palliative care really is was brought up and how there are so many different perspectives people can have with the idea of palliative or hospice care. The same idea pertained to physician assisted suicide and what really makes that right and wrong. The book then begins to talk about multiple stores that were similar to Kim and Amy’s. Cases that were similar were mentioned, such as the three nurses who worked for Veterans Affairs Medial Canter and how they all had high mortality rates during the times that they worked along with more cardiac related deaths that
usual. The book allows the reader to get a clear idea of how Amy and Kim were feeling throughout the months that they were not allowed to work. They struggled with the idea that someone really thought that they killed Rose with too much medication. Their lives were turned upside down. After many months the women are allowed to come back to work. They eventually find out that their case was closed due to them not being able to find any evidence that the murder speculation was true. This is relieving but all this struggling was done over that past few months to finally be free from it. The book ends with the police confronting Rose’s son about what may have happened to his mother. The police mention that his mother was possibly over medicated with morphine which may have led to her death. He responds with saying he was thankful of that did happen, his mother did not have to suffer any longer. The autopsy showed that there was no high level of morphine in her system so she was then finally cremated and just like that it was all finally over (Cohen, 2010).
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
During week 4, we became familiar with the application of ethics in the nursing practice settings. We learned about ethical theories and principles, which are crucial when practicing in any clinical settings during ethical decision-making and while facing one or multiple ethical dilemmas. Also, we were introduced to the MORAL model used in ethical decision – making progress. The MORAL model is the easiest model to use in the everyday clinical practice, for instance at bedside nursing. This model can be applyed in any clinical settings and its acronyms assist
Barbara Huttman’s “A Crime of Compassion” has many warrants yet the thesis is not qualified. This is a story that explains the struggles of being a nurse and having to make split-second decisions, whether they are right or wrong. Barbara was a nurse who was taking care of a cancer patient named Mac. Mac had wasted away to a 60-pound skeleton (95). When he walked into the hospital, he was a macho police officer who believed he could single-handedly protect the whole city (95). His condition worsened every day until it got so bad that he had to be resuscitated two or three times a day. Barbara eventually gave into his wishes to be let go. Do you believe we should have the right to die?
The sub-title of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ book describes her audience as doctors, nurses, clergy and the family of dying patients. Because of her target audience the book is written on a more emotional level, citing examples of both positive and negative death experiences. There are no detailed descriptions of what happens to the body as it dies, just discussions of how the dying person might feel and how they might want to experience their last moments of life. Sherwin Nuland takes a much more scientific approach with his book “How We Die”. In chapter seven, Accidents, Suicide and Euthanasia, Nuland describes in great detail the pathophysiology of why a person dies from sepsis and pulmonary infection. His book is targeted more towards the health care professional who is familiar with long drawn out discussions of the pathophysiology of a certain disease process. The choice of target audience by each author correlates to their discussions regarding who controls the death experience. Kübler-Ross argues for patient input and control and so...
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
Envision your loved one having so much pain that they no longer want to be alive, but they have no other option than to endure the pain they are going through. Imagine yourself feeling useless and incompetent,serving no purpose in the world where everybody is mobile, feeling like a burden to those around you. Well some people did not have to envision it, which is what happened with Mac in Barbara Huttman’s essay. Mac wanted the right to die, begging to be let go until his death. He had to suffer due to the fact that he had no choice but to do so. Huttman, his hospice nurse, who had to resuscitate him 52 times, no longer wanted to see him in agony and took it upon herself to help him end his life (815-817). With the legalization of physician
Apart from physicians, nursing professionals act as patient advocate in supporting end-of- life decisions as they spend maximum time with patients than any other member of the healthcare team. In many health care settings, the nurse has the responsibility of asking the patient about advance directives. Since each state identifies different laws regarding advance directives, it is important that nurses be aware of the rules of these documents for the purpose of accuracy and compliance. The nurses are required to document any conversations about advance directives in the patient's medical record and keep it timely and updated. Nurses can play vital role in resolving conflicts arising from moral and ethical issues related to advance care planning
Nurses provide guidance and address the problems in the end-of-life decision-making process. It is the nurse’s role to explain to families and other healthcare professionals when an advance directive would be put to use. An advance directive serves as a guide for clinicians to respect and honor the autonomous decision of the patient when they are in a position to not be able to express their wishes (Roux & Halstead, 2009). Nurses could assist in ensuring the patient needs are met along with protecting their rights. The registered nurse act as client advocates in health maintenance and clinical care (Standards of Nursing conduct or practice, 2003). Advocating for patients could bring implications such as conflicts with physician and families regarding decision on the plan of care. Nurses struggle with having the feeling of powerlessness towards family decision rather than supporting patient decision. Nurses also experience moral distress and outrage at unsuccessful attempts at becoming patient advocate.
Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families. London: Routledge, 2009. Print.
Nurses are both blessed and cursed to be with patients from the very first moments of life until their final breath. With those last breaths, each patient leaves someone behind. How do nurses handle the loss and grief that comes along with patients dying? How do they help the families and loved ones of deceased patients? Each person, no matter their background, must grieve the death of a loved one, but there is no right way to grieve and no two people will have the same reaction to death. It is the duty of nurses to respect the wishes and grieving process of each and every culture; of each and every individual (Verosky, 2006). This paper will address J. William Worden’s four tasks of mourning as well as the nursing implications involved – both when taking care of patients’ families and when coping with the loss of patients themselves.
Brier-Mackie suggests that nurses' focus on care and nurture, rather than cure of illness, results in a distinctive ethics. Furthermore, nursing ethics emphasizes the ethics of everyday practice rather than moral dilemmas. Nursing ethics is more concerned with developing the caring relationship than broader principles, such as beneficence and justice. For example, a concern to promote beneficence may be expressed in traditional medical ethics by the exercise of paternalism, where the health professional makes a decision based upon a perspective of acting in the patient's best interests. However, it is argued by some that this approach acts against person-centered values found in nursing ethics. The distinction can be examined from different theoretical angles. Despite the move toward more deontological themes by some, there continues to be an interest in virtue ethics. In nursing ethics and some support for an ethic of the car. This is considered by its advocates to emphasize relationships over abstract principles and therefore to reflect the caring relationship in nursing more accurately than other ethical views. Themes that emphasize the dignity of the patient by promoting a respectful and caring attitude from nurses are also commonly seen. According to Baille Let al., (2008) Nurses have an obligation to defend the dignity of those in their care. Rumbold, G (1999) emphasizes on the ability of the nurse to respond to vulnerable patients by providing dignified care which is a key concept in the field of nursing. This goes hand in hand with the standard ethical theory of respecting dignity for people and their autonomous choices, enabling them to make decisions about their own treatment. Among other things, this grounds the practice of informed consent that should be respected by the nurse, although much of the debate lies in the discussion of cases
Conversely, the ethical principle of autonomy provides for respect for the capacity and autonomy of a patient to make choices and decisions concerning their life and death. As nurses try to respect the autonomy of a patient, they may go against other principles, such as beneficence and non-maleficence. However, beneficence sees the nurse as the advocate to the patient who must do good at the best interest of others. Therefore, performing euthanasia to the patient would represent a feeling of responsibility, for example, in Terri’s welfare whereby the nurse would relieve her of the shame of sitting in a vegetative state for close to two decades.
In conclusion, there are numerous legal and ethical issues apparent in the nursing practice. Nurses should study and be as informed as they can with ethics and legality within their field in order to ensure no mistakes occur. Ethical issues vary based on patient’s views, religion, and environment. Nurses are influenced by these same views, but most of the time they are not the same as the patients. As a nurse we must learn to put the care of our patients and their beliefs, rights, and wishes before our own personal
There are many ethical principles and theories involving the end-of-life issue. The questions and the various views involving in the issues with a competent patients’ refusal of life sustaining treatment and the participation of the health care professional on patient assisted suicide. Among the views to consider are the individual beliefs, cultural, social and religious beliefs of the patient and the professional health care provider.
Integrity, respect for persons, justice, non-maleficence, and responsibility are all identified within the code, however compassion is not directly stated but is implied. To show compassion for others during suffering is an almost automatic response in nursing. When nurses decide to act either beneficently or non-maleficently they are doing a service to those being cared for. When dealing with human lives moral value becomes especially important, and is not situationally dependent. Ethical neutrality does not have a place in professional ethics, and an obligation to respect the moral values is necessary. The code deals with specific issues related to the nursing profession, and ensures standards are upheld. Creation of code of ethics within a profession limits misconduct, create safeguards, promote trust for the profession within society, and preserves the integrity of the profession (Soskolne, 1984) It is important for me to emphasize the difference between the nurse’s code of ethics and the Hippocratic Oath. The nurses ethical code is tailored toward the care provided to the patient, and not the involved science and diagnostic aspect of the