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Reflection on end of life care
Reflection on end of life care
Reflection on end of life care
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End of life care is an important aspect to the health care field. According to the 60 minutes video, the U.S spends around 55 million dollars yearly to provide end of life services to its citizens. Many citizens may feel that the money spent is not being used in the most cost effective way. The U.S use the tax payers and Medicare money to pay for end of care services. Funds that are considered to be a waste in end of life care could be useful in other areas; such as research, finding cures, and continuing advancements in medicine. Another reason citizens may feel the money is not being used in the best way, because a lot of services do not actually save a patients like but just prolong it instead. While prolonging a patient’s life more harm …show more content…
The patient should have the choice to decide if they want to continue or end care. If a patient chooses to continue end of life care, the fees should fall on the individual and their families. Especially if ones conditions are continuing to worsen with little progress. The majority of society wants to live longer and healthier lives, so there’s nothing wrong with wanting to continue services that do just that. Once it gets to the point that a person is only alive because of a ventilator or some other medical treatment, and the person is unable to perform basic daily functions on their own it is time to consider ending one’s life. Once a patient has become dependent on a medical tool and can no longer live without, some may look at this as torture. Being keep alive and barely striving, may be looked at as a waste of money and bed space. No one can put a price on life nor can anyone tell someone when they should end their life in end of life care situations. With that being said, if a patient would like to continue end of life care they have the right to do so at their own
...the death rate and decrease the quality of care on patients. They argue that having the legal right to request an euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide will make doctors more comfortable ending a patient's life against their will without having to face any legal consequences. Although this point of view is true, I still think terminal ill patients should have the right to choose whether they want to keep living or not. This right should not be denied but modified. I think that once the patient knows he has no cure, he or she should sign a paper or make a will where it authorizes the doctor or family members to take the decision of ending his or her life in case his conditions worsens or the pain is unbearable. It would be just like the patients that have the "Do not resuscitate" request on their medical forms, but this time it would say "Do not prolong my agony."
A divergent set of issues and opinions involving medical care for the very seriously ill patient have dogged the bioethics community for decades. While sophisticated medical technology has allowed people to live longer, it has also caused protracted death, most often to the severe detriment of individuals and their families. Ira Byock, director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, believes too many Americans are “dying badly.” In discussing this issue, he stated, “Families cannot imagine there could be anything worse than their loved one dying, but in fact, there are things worse.” “It’s having someone you love…suffering, dying connected to machines” (CBS News, 2014). In the not distant past, the knowledge, skills, and technology were simply not available to cure, much less prolong the deaths of gravely ill people. In addition to the ethical and moral dilemmas this presents, the costs of intensive treatment often do not realize appreciable benefits. However, cost alone should not determine when care becomes “futile” as this veers medicine into an even more dangerous ethical quagmire. While preserving life with the best possible care is always good medicine, the suffering and protracted deaths caused from the continued use of futile measures benefits no one. For this reason, the determination of futility should be a joint decision between the physician, the patient, and his or her surrogate.
Hospice focuses on end of life care. When patients are facing terminal illness and have an expected life sentence of days to six months or less of life. Care can take place in different milieu including at home, hospice care center, hospital, and skilled nursing facility. Hospice provides patients and family the tool and resources of how to come to the acceptance of death. The goal of care is to help people who are dying have peace, comfort, and dignity. A team of health care providers and volunteers are responsible for providing care. A primary care doctor and a hospice doctor or medical director will patients care. The patient is allowed to decide who their primary doctor will be while receiving hospice care. It may be a primary care physician or a hospice physician. Nurses provide care at home by vising patient at home or in a hospital setting facility. Nurses are responsible for coordination of the hospice care team. Home health aides provide support for daily and routine care ( dressing, bathing, eating and etc). Spiritual counselors, Chaplains, priests, lay ministers or other spiritual counselors can provide spiritual care and guidance for the entire family. Social workers provide counseling and support. They can also provide referrals to other support systems. Pharmacists provide medication oversight and suggestions regarding the most effective
Terminally ill patients deserve the right to have a dignified death. These patients should not be forced to suffer and be in agony their lasting days. The terminally ill should have this choice, because it is the only way to end their excruciating pain. These patients don’t have
End-of-life care in the United States is often fraught with difficult decisions and borne with great expense. Americans are often uncomfortable discussing death and
Euthanasia is the fact of ending somebody’s life when assisting him to die peacefully without pain. In most cases, it is a process that leads to end the suffering of human beings due to disease or illness. A person other than the patient is responsible for the act of euthanasia; for example a medical provider who gives the patient the shot that must kill him. When people sign a consent form to have euthanasia, it is considered voluntary, involuntary euthanasia is when they refuse. When people are not alert and oriented they are not allowed to sign any consent including the consent to euthanasia. When euthanasia is practiced in such situation, it is a non-voluntary euthanasia. In sum, people who practice voluntary euthanasia in honoring other
There is great debate in this country and worldwide over whether or not terminally ill patients who are experiencing great suffering should have the right to choose death. A deep divide amongst the American public exists on the issue. It is extremely important to reach an ethical decision on whether or not terminally ill patients have this right to choose death, since many may be needlessly suffering, if an ethical solution exists.
¨ If I cannot give my consent to my own death, whose body is this? Who owns my life?- Sue Rodriguez. If one cannot choose when they die and how they go out, then are we really the owner of our life and body? Physician assisted suicide is the practice of providing a competent patient with a prescription for medication for the patient to use with the primary intention of ending his or her own life. When the patient is terminally ill and is in a lot of pain they should be able to end their own life instead of waiting for it to end itself. Even though some argue that physician assisted suicide is not a humane way of dying it still stops the patient´s suffering and gives them peace of mind.
The topic of euthanasia and assisted suicide is very controversial. People who support euthanasia say that it is someone 's right to end their own life in the case of a terminal illness. Those in favor of this right consider the quality of life of the people suffering and say it is their life and, therefore, it is their decision. The people against euthanasia argue that the laws are in place to protect people from corrupt doctors. Some of the people who disagree with assisted suicide come from a religious background and say that it is against God’s plan to end one 's life. In between these two extreme beliefs there are some people who support assisted suicide to a certain degree and some people who agree on certain terms and not on others.
“Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window […] the variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames.” This was said by American author David Foster Wallace who died by suicide in September of 2008. Most people do not want to die, dying is absolutely terrifying but for some, it becomes a choice between leaping out the window and sailing down to a quick death at your own hands and getting caught in the building and waiting for the
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...
My claim: I argue in favor of the right to die. If someone is suffering from a terminal illness that is: 1) causing them great pain – the pain they are suffering outweighs their will to live (clarification below) 2) wants to commit suicide, and is of sound mind such that their wanting is reasonable. In this context, “sound mind” means the ability to logically reason and not act on impulses or emotions. 3) the pain cannot be reduced to the level where they no longer want to commit suicide, then they should have the right to commit suicide. It should not be considered wrong for someone to give that person the tools needed to commit suicide.
As patients come closer to the end of their lives, certain organs stop performing as well as they use to. People are unable to do simple tasks like putting on clothes, going to the restroom without assistance, eat on our own, and sometimes even breathe without the help of a machine. Needing to depend on someone for everything suddenly brings feelings of helplessness much like an infant feels. It is easy to see why some patients with terminal illnesses would seek any type of relief from this hardship, even if that relief is suicide. Euthanasia or assisted suicide is where a physician would give a patient an aid in dying. “Assisted suicide is a controversial medical and ethical issue based on the question of whether, in certain situations, Medical practioners should be allowed to help patients actively determine the time and circumstances of their death” (Lee). “Arguments for and against assisted suicide (sometimes called the “right to die” debate) are complicated by the fact that they come from very many different points of view: medical issues, ethical issues, legal issues, religious issues, and social issues all play a part in shaping people’s opinions on the subject” (Lee). Euthanasia should not be legalized because it is considered murder, it goes against physicians’ Hippocratic Oath, violates the Controlled
Assisted suicide has been a controversial topic for many decades. Today’s society brings up many realistic and ethical questions such as; who owns our lives? Should ending suffering be the highest priority? Who should be allowed to make the decision to end a person’s life when they are unresponsive or incompetent of making decisions? Should suicide be an option? Every answer may vary depending on whom you ask because they are only opinions. The purpose of documents such as the bill of rights and the Constitution were created to give people rights as well as freedoms, but does it include the right to choose when one’s life ends? The legalization of assisted suicide is another right person should have so they have the freedom to make their own choice when facing death. Assisted suicide should become a legal option for those suffering.
& nbsp ; Some feel that a terminally ill patient should have a legal right to control the manner in which they die. Physicians and nurses have fought for the right to aid a patient in their death. Many families of the terminally ill have exhausted all of their funds caring for a dying patient and would prefer the option of assisted suicide to bankruptcy. While there are many strong opposing viewpoints, one of the strongest is that the terminally ill patient has the right to die in a humane, dignified manner.