Does health care in general do any good for our species?

Nurses General Nursing Nursing Q/A

Does health care in general do any good for our species? By saving people from horrible illness and poor lifestyle choices, are we encouraging a weaker human species by going against natural selection processes?

Discuss at will. :D

What a great thread!! Great posts!! Lots of food for thought. Loved the last one, made me think of my father. They decided to do surgery while he was in full blown septic shock, pressure barely maintained with Levophed (aka leave em dead). Why this torture??

So far, he's still around fighting with me. Fortuanately, it only took a month. Guess he wasn't ready to go. I wasn't ready for him to go either. Very hard judgement call.

He was in his seventies, had triple CABG the year before.

Answer to the original question? Nah. We can try but we're not that powerful.

Anne

Addendum: I posted at same time as someone else. "The last post" specifically referred to researchrabbit. Liked the new one too.

Great discussion. Thoughts without flames. Is this possible?

I think in the U.S. anyway, it is survival of the wealthiest. If you have the money they won't stop. If you're poor and/or don't have health insurance, people are less likely to work with you. I think this is truly unfair. Don't flame me, please :)

Kristy

Matt, I love you for this thread.

Emily, things are not always as they seem. Best pediatrician I ever met was in a local health department that gave free or reduced price care. She was tired of trying to keep parents happy in private practice by giving antibiotics for viral sore throats so she took a job in the health dept. The patients had nowhere else to go when she said no antibiotic unless the strep is positive. Yes, explaining is nice, lots of people don't want to hear.

You know who gets all there shots here? Kids on WIC. They need their shots to get their checks. Coercive? I suppose. On the other hand, they can so no to the checks.

Best HIV care I ever saw, Kings County Hospital and Downstate in Brooklyn. Lots of HIV, lots of poor people. And everybody knew the score, including the patients. If I want care, I have to be used as a learning tool. But, there were always good teachers in the background.

I'm not flaming, Kristy, I hope you know that. It's just that I saw what I saw. I wasn't surprised when I found the pediatrician at the Health Dept graduated from Harvard. I already knew she was that good.

Anne

Specializes in ER.

I don't think universal healthcare is a right, but I think it would be barbaric not to offer universal pain control, not matter what.

If it was my Dad with the CABG and septic shock, etc I could never just give up, so I understand why family members choose to fight to the bitter end. Unfortunately by saving one man with a poor prognosis we have just upped insurance rates, denying care to several others. Or in the Canadian system, where you get X money for Y population one critical care patient means that 10 homecare visits were not available. (these aren't actual statistics, just an example)

You know I think that the universal healthcare fight is shortsighted and selfish(for the current generation). If we want to better the planet how about the right to free quality education. We'd better our current situation and improve the world sotuation for our children.

Specializes in Obstetrics, M/S, Psych.

I think emily is right in that the richest get the best care. That will moreso prove itself once we have the ability to genetically alter DNA so that disease and undesirable traits are removed before conception. At that point, those who are engineered to be totally unafflicted before they are even born would probably think that these developments are great for them...but as to whether that will be good for the species as a whole? That is the question!

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Originally posted by mattcastens

By saving people from horrible illness and poor lifestyle choices, are we encouraging a weaker human species by going against natural selection processes?

If true, it would sure blow Darwin's theory to hades.

I agree with canoehead about the problem regarding the surgery with poor prognosis, even though it was my father.

It was an interesting situation and I got there after all decisions were made. When admitted he was already in shock and vomitting. They missed the diagnosis and did a lap - no problem.

My father is a physician, retired. The intensivist had worked with him and considered him his mentor. Basically, he said he could not let my father die on his watch. So, he spent hours grilling my father's wife. Finally she remembered what he said when he diagnosed his own problem (he's a pretty good doc) - in the middle of severe vomitting (which he dxed as e coli food poisoning in the car on the way to the hospital by quantity, color and volume), he said, "I'm having chest pain, it's not cardiac, take me to the emergency room."

Once the intensivist heard that, he called the cardio-thoracic surgeon and told him he had a patient with Boorhaave's syndrome. The surgeon was driving out of the garage, corrected pronunciation and asked who was the patient. When the intensivist told him the name, the surgeon slammed on his brakes and was there in three minutes.

The surgeon insisted on the surgery to my brothers, the intensivist was hoping to hold off. My brothers were a bit upset by all this, they did what the surgeon recommended. He also knew my father and couldn't let him die if there was anything he could do to prevent it.

I didn't get there till after the second surgery. I told my father, while he was pavolonized and on a vent, that if he was tired and wanted to let go, I, for one, wouldn't blame him. I guess he did not want to go.

Health care decisions sometimes make themseleves. When it is personal people do things they might not have done. IN this case, everyone who knew my father, knew he was strong enough to get through it, if they could get there jobs right.

Sorry for being so personal here. Sometimes health care is personal. The fact is, it is personal to everyone who gets sick and, ideally, the health care system would respond the way it did to my father. If they didn't know how strong he was, they never would have decided to do what they did. Fortunately, the surgeon knew how good he was.

Surgery was done twenty five hours after the tear happened (that's what Boorhaave's is, a tear in the esophagus, often brought on by severe vomitting). Every book I read said mortality is one hundred percent if surgery is not done in twenty four hours.

I think it helps everyone to learn that the textbooks are wrong sometimes.

I am tempted to feel guilty that my father got such good care when others don't. But, in the best environments, other patients benefit from what the caregivers teach themselves. Now the intensivist will be more open to that diagnosis. The surgeon knows the textbook is wrong. They experimented on my father because they loved him and did not want to let him go. He would have let them anyway, he knows they need practice.

All I can say, is that I have often thought that I personally would not want to have my life prolonged.........I mean, retiring in my 60's (probably my 70's by the time I get to that point)...fixed income, sure to develop at some point multiple maladies which can be cured by some miracle drug or whatnot, but which costs a frigging fortune. Who knows what kind of health programs will be around then...wil medicare still exist? and even so, it's not exactly the best, as it doesn't pay for those "frigging expensive drugs", and has so many limitations. So there I'll be living out a life that might never be quite my own again....people live into their 90's now, some longer, hell I want to be dead before then! I don't want to wear diapers or take 12 pills every morning, 6 at noon, and 8 at night. Maybe by then there will be more miracles, but unless they truly make quality of life better, then why bother? I don't want to live forever....or even close to it.

But hey, that's just me. Weaker human species? I have no clue. Seems we'd have some real major population problems though.

Healthcare (and Education) should be free in any country that wants ALL of its citizens to achieve the best that they can, which in turn, enriches that country. Needlessly prolonging a life which has no quality apart from continued existence is another thing.

I don't remember if it was a play or a documentary, it was a long time back, but the title stuck with me;

"Are you doing this for me, Doctor, or are you doing it for you?"

It's a question which should be put more often.

Originally posted by sbic56

I think emily is right in that the richest get the best care. That will moreso prove itself once we have the ability to genetically alter DNA so that disease and undesirable traits are removed before conception. At that point, those who are engineered to be totally unafflicted before they are even born would probably think that these developments are great for them...but as to whether that will be good for the species as a whole? That is the question!

Exactly right. How do we know that the DNA or genes that we feel are "undesirable" was an alteration or design by nature for a specific purpose we don't have knowledge of? Just a thought....

Specializes in Obstetrics, M/S, Psych.
Exactly right. How do we know that the DNA or genes that we feel are "undesirable" was an alteration or design by nature for a specific purpose we don't have knowledge of? Just a thought....

I was referring to the fact that those less able to afford immortality would be negatively affected by such "progress", but your line of thought is also intruging...

Anne,

How common is that though? We have WIC and BadgerCare and all that other stuff, but I was more talking about those that don't qualify for healthcare b/c they make too much and don't have benefits at their job. They are the ones hurting more than the poor. I should have been clearer. Sorry.

We have no free things around here. You have to be homeless to get any free care. The only free clinic here serves the homeless.

Kristy

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