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Conclusion on compassion in health care
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No one can define how much compassion is right; we have to decide that for ourselves. In medicine there is a fine line between impartiality and indifference, and compassion and bias. Although both are crucial virtues for physicians to possess, it is imperative that they remain in balance and to have neither too much nor too little compassion. Compassion and impartiality are two sides of a coin and physicians should try to master both to serve patient.
The heads side of the coin or impartiality is the other fifty percent of the equation for creating a successful physician. It may be hard to do, but is necessary to focus on the disease rather than who the patient is in order to come up with the right amount of compassion. Even though, as humans we are bound by moral and or social dilemmas that can cause us to waiver when faced with a contrasting point of view. A common ethical dilemma often posed is the case of treating patients, who is flagrantly offensive, and their actions caused others to suffer harm. It might be difficult knowing that a patient you are saving may go back to harming others. In this case you will have to rely
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There are many benefits to simply listening and working to understand the problems of a patient. Research studies have shown that compassionate doctors commit less medical errors and have patients with better recovery which ultimately leads to higher patient satisfaction. However, crossing over the line and becoming too invested in a patient’s well-being can have detrimental effects. Doctors who become too invested can suffer from compassion fatigue which can cause burn out consequently ending a career as a proficient physician. It is necessary to maintain impartiality to come up with a clear treatment plan, compassion bolsters the outcome of the plan by showing the patient that doctors truly care about their
I often ask myself, “Can I handle it?” I learned from other doctors that in order to provide the best care, a physician must be able to detach himself or herself from the patient; they say it would be better for both the doctor and the patient. But, with that kind of thinking, the doctor is not fully giving himself to the patient. So, is it right to not fully give oneself to care for the patient? Learning from Patrick Dismuke and those who loved him, it seemed that the hospital was able to care for him best by loving him. Nurse Kay, Patrick’s favorite nurse, not only answered his late night calls, but enjoyed talking with him. This always calmed Patrick down before and/or after surgery. Dr. Aceves was always optimistic and hopeful for the future of Patrick’s health, never giving up on him by pushing for surgery. He did this because he knew Patrick all 16 years and was emotionally attached to the boy, even though Patrick did not feel the same way. Thus, though I can understand that a physician must put a wall between himself or herself and the patient, there should still be a strong connection in which they would do anything for the patient’s comfort and
For anyone who has ever worked in healthcare, or simply for someone who has watched a popular hit television show such as Grey’s Anatomy, General Hospital, House or ER know that there can be times when a doctor or health care provider is placed in extremely difficult situations. Often times, those situations are something that we watch from the sidelines and hope for the best in the patient’s interest. However, what happens when you place yourself inside the doctors, nurses, or any other of the medical provider’s shoes? What if you were placed in charge of a patient who had an ethically challenging situation? What you would you do then? That is precisely what Lisa Belkin accomplishes in her book “First Do No Harm”. Belkin takes the reader on
When we see patients, we must remember that we are not simply treating a disease. We are caring for people with lives, hobbies, jobs, families, and friends, who are likely in a very vulnerable position. We must ensure that we use the status of physicians to benefit patients first and foremost, and do what we promised to when we entered the profession: provide care and improve quality of life, and hopefully leave the world a little better than it was
In certain situations it is difficult for a person to decide between a moral and immoral choice. In the field of health there are physicians and patients that may have two different mindsets. One may be a patient that believes a decision is moral, while a physician may think the decision is immoral. How can the physician stick to his beliefs and morals when he must make a choice to go against them or not?
In the medical profession, doctors and nurses run into ethical dilemmas every day whether it be a mother who wants to abort her baby or a patient who has decided they want to stop cancer treatment. It is important for the nurse to know where they stand with their own moral code, but to make sure they are not being biased when educating the patient. Nurses are patient advocates, it is in the job description, so although the nurse may not agree with the patient on their decisions, the nurse to needs to advocate for the patient regardless.
Majoring in medicine is one of the most intellectually challenging things that I’ve ever been a part of. When faced with task to do a research paper depicting a problem in your major, well because the medical field is so broad so I found a topic that is almost never talked about. “Love and Medicine”, I chose this topic because it deals with physicians being more than “friendly” with their patients as unethical as this may seem it happens almost. The relationship between a patient and a doctor should be extremely platonic; doctors should always know his or her boundaries, display a level of professionalism, and show as much humility in their job as possible.
Today’s society protects against discrimination through laws, which have been passed to protect minorities. The persons in a minority can be defined as “a group having little power or representation relative to other groups within a society” (The Free Dictionary). It is not ethical for any person to discriminate based on race or ethnicity in a medical situation, whether it takes place in the private settings of someone’s home or in a public hospital. Racial discrimination, in a medical setting, is not ethical on the grounds of legal statues, moral teachings, and social standings.
At the most fundamental level, in a good physician-patient relationship, the physician typically trusts the patient as a moral agent. Just as a trusting patient assumes good will on the part of the physician, so a physician entering into or engaging in a therapeutic relationship with a patient must also assume good will. This means, of course, not fearing physical harm, libelous reputational damage, or spiteful legal recourse, but more generally, it requires assuming that one is not being manipulated, used, or set up by a patient bent on securing some ill-gotten or undeserved
An altruistic predisposition is one of the core faculties that inform ethical medical practice. Physicians are held in positions of trust, and are viewed as being socially and ethically contracted to act selflessly in service to persons under their care. Altruism in medicine therefore represents an ideal that is necessary in preserving the fabric of trust between physicians and their patients, as well as their perception of physicians as healers who place their health before any individual self-interest. This social contract is essential to the effective functioning of medicine. An erosion of this trust would represent a degradation of physicians’ ability to act as effective intermediaries between medical science and health. The origin of my
Given the complexity of modern medical care anyone working in a medical environment needs a framework which approaches these challenges. Doctors have to be honest, take responsibility, and be reliable, which are characteristics of good ethical conduct.
In my many years in the healthcare profession, I have found that an individual’s moral and ethical principles that guide their professional beliefs, attitudes and actions can oftentimes suffer due to unconscious bias, mine included.
I researched many different aspects of compassion from sources such as TED Talks and The ProQOL Manual from Goggle Scholar. Ideas that I have got from those two sources sources confirmed and extended my belief about compassion. They also gave me more new, unique ideas to think about as they gave new perspective. I first like to extend what I said about my view in human condition proposal as when Joan Halifax talks about compassion and true meaning for empathy in Ted Talks; her idea and my idea had many similarities despite our different life experiences.
Doctors can pursue many career paths, including private practice, university-hospital work, or a job with a health maintenance organization. The first lets the physician be his own boss. The second offers him the opportunity to divide his work between treatment, research and instruction, in varying proportions. The third means he work for a large corporation, which provides him with patients and handles most of the administrative and business tasks that physicians in private practice have to handle on their own. Doctors can also work in inner-city clinics or in rural areas, where shortages of doctors exist. Doctors can be general practitioners or they can specialize in internal medicine, cardiology, endocrinology, neurology, oncology, sports medicine, or one of the many other specialties. Medicine is a very rewarding profession, but it is hard work. Doctors are often exhilarated when they know they have helped someone get well and devastated when they lose a patient. It is a job that can prey upon a physician physically and mentally. Since the average patient is not a doctor, physicians must not only be able to communicate difficult, often painful information to those in their care, but also they must learn how to interpret their patients' needs. They must relate to their patients as people and not reduce them to just the illness that needs to be treated. One element of this is collaborating with their patients to determine the best course of treatment for them as individuals. This requires patience, empathy, and compassion. "Compassion," said one doctor, "is absolutely necessary."
The defining characteristic of altruism is often described as self-sacrifice; to behave altruistically, an individual subordinates his or her interest in order to act for others’ benefit. I believe this definition of altruism differs in the context of medicine. Healthcare providers fulfill a special role within our society: physicians, in particular, are committed by a professional and ethical code to the deliver the highest quality of care, and to be accountable for the wellbeing of the patients and communities they serve. The stresses of professional medical practice can exact a great toll on healthcare providers. As physicians, being prepared to renounce self-interest could likely involve the danger ignoring personal health and wellbeing,
If that doctor would have completely devoted himself to my cousin’s case, I believe she would still be here today. That doctor is one of the many doctors who become dispassionate in the field of medicine. The love for medicine disappears and it becomes just a job, not a