Earlier today there was a thread regarding Dr. Kevorkian's release from prison. Just as I was adding my thoughts, it got moved to the Current Events restricted area.
At that time, it seemed like there was 100% support for him. Honestly, I was surprised, especially since not everyone he killed was terminally ill. (I'm from Michigan, though, so maybe I know more about his history).
So I'm wondering, do nurses generally support the theory of physician assisted suicide?
I'm a witness to patients with advance directives who are
admitted to a facitlity in a coma and tube fed
over long periods of time and this is immoral treatment
of them.
Some are in long term care for more than ten
years who have no quality of life and they're in pain.
Their houses are put up for sale just to afford their care.
That money should have been saved for their families.
There should be a legal time limit for how long
someone can be kept alive for financial gain.
_______________________________________________
I do, given strict medical and psychological guidelines...I think a terminally ill person should have the right to decide when and how they die...and at great risk of sounding tacky, I afford the 'good death' to my beloved pets, and if someone terminally ill wants that same 'good death', that's up to that person, not me.
I suppose the question is how you would define PAS(Shades of Bill Clinton). If it is to take a baby off a vent who has a syndrome or genetic disorder that is incompatable with life, then I support it. If it is to give a choice between giving a painfully struggling cancer patient a dose of morphrine knowing it could be his last, then I support it. But to assist someone who is active, mobile but afraid of pain from a disease, no I don't support it. Labs and doc get it wrong sometimes. There was the man in Britian recently who was told he had a year to live and sold everything he had and lived it up. Nine months later, the doctors said oops we got it wrong. Of course he's trying to sue. And in the US a lab that came back with the dx of breast cancer for this one woman. She had both breast removed and guess what no cancer found in either breast. What if these two had taken the easy route and did PAS?
And what about God? I think that we learn more in our trials than in the easy times. What would He be saying to us in this time of struggle? So I guess I have mixed feeling and views on PAS. How clear is that?
The situations you list above would not qualify those people for PAS. This is for people who have exhausted all means of treatment and are at the end of their lives, there is nothing more to be done except for palliative care. Not trying to change your mind, just clarifying.
As for the transplant issue, I just feel it's wrong to put another person't organs into another body. Divvying up the corpse for spare parts, like the zombies fighting over the entrails on Night Of The Living Dead. Just my humble beliefs.
Wow. I have met people who did not agree to donate organs, either their own or a loved one's, but this is the first time I've come across someone who was against transplantation at all. You are entitled to your beliefs as long as you allow me mine. My brother was a cadaver donor, we were able to help four people and it helped us to make sense out of his untimely death. I was a living donor for my father, and the improvement I saw in his quality of life made it worthwhile for me.
yes, when the suicide is for medical reasons, rather than psychological reasons.
[color=#483d8b]i do realize that there is a fine line at times, and i don't want to be the one to draw up the guidelines.
[color=#483d8b]i just don't understand why someone can make all the decisions there are in life, except for how/when to die.
[color=#483d8b]i think that if more terminally ill people knew that this was an option at the very end, they might be able to spend their final days living rather than agonizing about how they might die. even if they didn't end up chosing physician-assisted suicide, i think knowing they had the option would be comforting to many.
[color=#483d8b]but, that might just be me.
seemsto me that the quote you had by a schweitzer mentioned that limiting life was evil.
OK, I'll elaborate. If, as a nurse, you knowingly with-hold life-saving interventions, even though the family or patient requests it, you are technically committing murder. Let's look at it the other way. If the patient wanted these interventions (but was unable to say so) and the family said no, they would in fact be killing the patient. The only difference is that nobody arrests the nurses (for the most part)....if it went to trial, we'd all be hung out to dry.
This is an ethical dilemma for me. Every time I witness a person die and do nothing, it seems wrong, because the patient in the next bed gets full resusitative measures no matter what. And who's to keep another family member from disputing the DNR after the fact?
Personally, I think it should be a federally protected act to with-hold certain treatments in certain circumstances, but this country will never go there until drastic changes are made to our system of care.
BTW, I also vehemently disagree on using "spare parts" (organ transplants) to artificially keep people alive for a few years (in which the costs of care bankrupt all but the most financially well-off people). This is highly offensive to me.
I disagree that witholding futile heroic treatments is murder. Letting nature take it's course and allowing a terminally ill dying person to die is not an ethical issue with me at all.
Coding a person who is dying with a terminal illness is futile the ethical issue for me.
I'm not talking about two otherwise healthy people who happen to code. I'm talking about dying people whose disease/illness/trauma/old age is what is killing them.
Perhaps we as a society have a problem with the phrase "with holding treatment". Isn't comfort measure a treatment? It's be better with we present relatives of dying people with a "here are the two treatment measures: antiobidics, dialysis, CPR, etc......but the patient is still going to die.........or comfort measures making the inevitable death an easy and comfortable one. Rather than saying "treatment or withholding treatment".
I'm a witness to patients with advance directives who are
admitted to a facitlity in a coma and tube fed
over long periods of time and this is immoral treatment
of them.
Some are in long term care for more than ten
years who have no quality of life and they're in pain.
Their houses are put up for sale just to afford their care.
That money should have been saved for their families.
There should be a legal time limit for how long
someone can be kept alive for financial gain.
_______________________________________________
There was a story in the past week about a man who was in a coma for 19 years and awoke to the wonders of the 21st century. Hmmmm......
Tweety and Tazzi, seems we can agree to disagree. I don't know why I feel so stronly against transplants. At one time I worked in a couple of units where I cared for immediate post-op liver, heart, kidney and lung transplant patients; I found many of them ungrateful and with a HUGE sense of entitlement. Not to mention the foreign "princes" who showed up for their transplants on American soil. Another hmmmmmm.............
Tweety and Tazzi, seems we can agree to disagree. I don't know why I feel so stronly against transplants. At one time I worked in a couple of units where I cared for immediate post-op liver, heart, kidney and lung transplant patients; I found many of them ungrateful and with a HUGE sense of entitlement. Not to mention the foreign "princes" who showed up for their transplants on American soil. Another hmmmmmm.............
Okay, those I have a problem with! I can understand your feelings in those cases. I've cared for post-transplants in the ER, sometimes transplant-related, sometimes not, and I've never met any that were not grateful for their second chance, but if I did meet someone like that I'd wanna pin their ears back. And I don't agree about the foreign richies coming here for organs either.
There was a story in the past week about a man who was in a coma for 19 years and awoke to the wonders of the 21st century. Hmmmm......
Tweety and Tazzi, seems we can agree to disagree. I don't know why I feel so stronly against transplants. At one time I worked in a couple of units where I cared for immediate post-op liver, heart, kidney and lung transplant patients; I found many of them ungrateful and with a HUGE sense of entitlement. Not to mention the foreign "princes" who showed up for their transplants on American soil. Another hmmmmmm.............
After 19 years, I wake look around and say something obscene then go back into the coma.
Transplants are very beneficial
Just ask the guy who had one for alcohol cirrhosis, Had him in the ER last night drunk. Another Liver shot.
Just ask the 40 yo male with a heart Transplanted, due to an MI suffered while on cocaine. Recently in the ER for methamphetamine OD.
For everyone who has abused their organs there are too many positive stories, and I'm not willing to stop my support for transplants based on those few. I do not support transplants for smokers, alcoholics and drug addicts. Some of the patients have been chronically ill for their life or for a long time, and have that "chronicall ill personality" which might explain some of their behavior post-op.
There was a story in the past week about a man who was in a coma for 19 years and awoke to the wonders of the 21st century. Hmmmm.................
There are 10,000 or more currently in comas, so one awakes after 19 years. That doesn't change my views. If I awoke after 19 years I'd scream "what the heck were you thinking doing that to me for 19 loooooooong year!" :)
Amethyst Veralyn
35 Posts
I'm a witness to patients with advance directives who are
admitted to a facitlity in a coma and tube fed
over long periods of time and this is immoral treatment
of them.
Some are in long term care for more than ten
years who have no quality of life and they're in pain.
Their houses are put up for sale just to afford their care.
That money should have been saved for their families.
There should be a legal time limit for how long
someone can be kept alive for financial gain.
_______________________________________________