Euthanasia we will define as the deliberate stopping of a person's life by the actions of the medical staff. Some people feel that this may be appropriate in some circumstances. Other people feel that in no circumstance should a doctor give a medicine that she knows will cause the patient to die.How do you feel about this? Should it be legal or should doctors be punished if they do this?What if the patient has massive injuries like the lower half of the body torn off in an accident and is screaming in great pain and begging to die?What if the patient is in a mental depression, but otherwise healthy, and just wants to die?These are very difficult questions and I have given examples of two extremes. There is no wrong answer, because I am asking what you think.
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Euthanasia...well i think that anyone to decide formerly if in case of some circumstances her/his life has to be stop, and possibly how, a kind of will as it is possible to do about the donation of organs and the heroic treatment. Eachone should have the right to do it, obviously at least after me a desire of death such a depression can give shouldnt be considerating.
I have something to say.I know some of doctors.One of them is working on oncology department.
Yes,the doctor worries about a lawsuit.Therefore the doctor must give out the medicine in the professional regulation.I feel pity for your feeling.But it is regulation.We are powerless while facing these situations.In my country,if you have a special relationship with the doctor,perhaps the doctor'd ease the patient's pain with some sorts of bill without being concerned with addiction.
In a word,that is a rule. it will not change in short period.
@ Expector. I agree that such mistakes by doctor are rare and medical school is the place where the ones who may not have the highest standards can be stopped from finishing.
I just heard some statistics that doctors trained overseas have as good a record on mistakes as the US trained doctors.
An exception is America, doctors who studued overseas because they were not acceptable to our medical schools.
They have a higher rate of malpractice charges against them. Maybe our schools are turning away the right people after all.
@Bob: Sorry to hear the bad news about your mother. I can understand how terribly she was suffering. Doctors here where I live are encouraged and allowed to use some painkillers to effectively relieve/control patients' pain. Addiction is out of the question in such cases. Overdose can be a concern.
Overwork can also be a problem for doctors here. I'm now on the admin team of the hospital, so I'm glad I'm not that busy and can take time to enjoy being a moderator here on MyEC.
Yes, doctors know very well that they're treating patients, not repairing machinery. So doctors should be more careful not to make a mistake which can be of disasterous consequences. Unfortunately, doctors do make mistakes, though rarely.
Like Rose I have seen a loved one in pain and dying. The doctors give a little pain medicine but not enough to kill the pain entirely. It is hard for me to understand how a woman in her 80's dying of bone cancer and in constant pain is not allowed enough medicine to kill the pain. This is my mother I speak of and to hear her moaning in pain in her sleep was more than I could bear.
The doctor worries about addiction. The doctor worries about an accidental overdose. the doctor worries about a lawsuit, but I can't see that he worries enough about my mother. My understanding is that a person in extreme pain cannot become addicted to pain killers and if they could but will be dead from the cancer eating their bones in 2 months, what would be the harm? My mother did die as the doctor said she would and rarely was her pain completely controlled. Is it ethical to let a dying person be in pain when a simple pill can take away the pain?
I am not sure about what they teach in American medical schools, but I have to wonder if this doctor still keeps his terminal patients under medicated. I wonder if his mother will feel pain if she is dying in the same way? Maybe he will treat her the same. I wonder if he were dying himself, if he would be so reluctant to give out the medicine?
I have a friend who recently had back surgery and was treated to the other extreme. He was given so much pain medication that he was in danger. Luckily his niece who is a nurse came down and realized the conflict between the different medications and dismissed the doctor that was treating him. The next doctor quickly took him off the bad combination of drugs and he recovered, but his memory was affected for a while and he was almost like a drunk. We were all happy he was saved. I don't think this was an intentional mistake so the question of ethics here is less clear.
So you see, I think doctors are great and most of them make very few mistakes. Most of them are also overworked, and some keep going even after being exhausted. The truck drivers and airplane pilots of the world are forced to rest a set amount of time to avoid accidents but doctors are not always regulated. We just have to hope they have the good sense to rest when they need to. Is it ethical for the doctor to keep working when his mind is no longer very alert?
If I get tired and make a mistake it may cost a few hundred or a few thousand dollars. That is bad, but a doctor can make a little mistake that will kill or seriously hurt someone.
As far as ethics, I do not fault a doctor who becomes exhausted and makes a mistake because she is trying her best to save many hurt and sick people. On the other hand, if a doctor makes the mistakes by pushing too hard for purposes of greed, then I think we do have an ethical question.
I know Euthanasia is illegal and unacceptable in most of the countries. Most of us think it's unethical. But no one knows for sure if it will be acceptable worldwide in the future.
First Bob,
i want to thank you for choice these good subjects to discuss.
It is important to discuss such these issues.
For this topic ( Euthanasia)....
It happened with my aunt in the past ... i was standing near her bed in the hospital ..looking at her face, how she couldn't bear the pain....her eyes were telling me please stop the unbearable pain..her hands were tied to the bed.
It is not easy to see her suffering... and in the same time can't stop her pain..
because my religion says you can't do that, it is not allow for you to take away his life. The ethical question is: Whether one has the right to take away life?
On religions grounds many will say no ,it is nothing but suicide.
In all countries attempts to commit suicide is a crime,
so if we look at this subject in this way ,it is very unethical and anti relegions.
In my country, Euthanasia is banned. We never use it here. Although if children born with handicaps. We do not euthanize them because they have their life ,and we do not have the right to take something from them. ( my country football team for the handicaps people won the world cup this week and all of us appreciate them).
About a patient is in mental depression but otherwise healthy, we do not have this kind of patients. Our religion Islam ordered us if someone feels depressed, he must read Quran and pray to Allah. I have never hear about someone here wanted to die or someone tried to kill him/her self. All of that are banned in Islam.
But about the 2nd situation, when a patient has massive injuries ......etc, I don't know. They do not euthanize him/her. But in my opinion, I think it is better for him/her to die. This is the only situation I think we can euthanize someone because we help him by that way.
I am against Euthanasia in general, because I don't think it is up to the doctor to kill someone. The Nazi doctors felt that to make a master race everyone must be strong and healthy. Children born with handicaps were euthanized so they could not reproduce and weaken the gene pool. You may do this in breeding your dogs or cattle, but I think humans have to be considered different. Also they went to the places where people were in wheelchairs, to the insane asylums, to any ethnic neighborhood for people that they thought were inferior, and all homosexuals they could find and "euthanized" them or worse in some cases.
The right to die with dignity is different I think. If I am dying and cannot recover, I feel that I should have the right to refuse to have tubes shoved in every opening of my body and be kept alive like a tomato on the vine. If my brain is dead and my body can be kept in a bed for years by modern medicine, I feel that it would not be living. The body would be an empty shell without brain or spirit. That is just my opinion. There may be cases where a different answer could be ethically correct.
Replies
Yes,the doctor worries about a lawsuit.Therefore the doctor must give out the medicine in the professional regulation.I feel pity for your feeling.But it is regulation.We are powerless while facing these situations.In my country,if you have a special relationship with the doctor,perhaps the doctor'd ease the patient's pain with some sorts of bill without being concerned with addiction.
In a word,that is a rule. it will not change in short period.
I just heard some statistics that doctors trained overseas have as good a record on mistakes as the US trained doctors.
An exception is America, doctors who studued overseas because they were not acceptable to our medical schools.
They have a higher rate of malpractice charges against them. Maybe our schools are turning away the right people after all.
Overwork can also be a problem for doctors here. I'm now on the admin team of the hospital, so I'm glad I'm not that busy and can take time to enjoy being a moderator here on MyEC.
Yes, doctors know very well that they're treating patients, not repairing machinery. So doctors should be more careful not to make a mistake which can be of disasterous consequences. Unfortunately, doctors do make mistakes, though rarely.
The doctor worries about addiction. The doctor worries about an accidental overdose. the doctor worries about a lawsuit, but I can't see that he worries enough about my mother. My understanding is that a person in extreme pain cannot become addicted to pain killers and if they could but will be dead from the cancer eating their bones in 2 months, what would be the harm? My mother did die as the doctor said she would and rarely was her pain completely controlled. Is it ethical to let a dying person be in pain when a simple pill can take away the pain?
I am not sure about what they teach in American medical schools, but I have to wonder if this doctor still keeps his terminal patients under medicated. I wonder if his mother will feel pain if she is dying in the same way? Maybe he will treat her the same. I wonder if he were dying himself, if he would be so reluctant to give out the medicine?
I have a friend who recently had back surgery and was treated to the other extreme. He was given so much pain medication that he was in danger. Luckily his niece who is a nurse came down and realized the conflict between the different medications and dismissed the doctor that was treating him. The next doctor quickly took him off the bad combination of drugs and he recovered, but his memory was affected for a while and he was almost like a drunk. We were all happy he was saved. I don't think this was an intentional mistake so the question of ethics here is less clear.
So you see, I think doctors are great and most of them make very few mistakes. Most of them are also overworked, and some keep going even after being exhausted. The truck drivers and airplane pilots of the world are forced to rest a set amount of time to avoid accidents but doctors are not always regulated. We just have to hope they have the good sense to rest when they need to. Is it ethical for the doctor to keep working when his mind is no longer very alert?
If I get tired and make a mistake it may cost a few hundred or a few thousand dollars. That is bad, but a doctor can make a little mistake that will kill or seriously hurt someone.
As far as ethics, I do not fault a doctor who becomes exhausted and makes a mistake because she is trying her best to save many hurt and sick people. On the other hand, if a doctor makes the mistakes by pushing too hard for purposes of greed, then I think we do have an ethical question.
What opinion do others have of this?
i want to thank you for choice these good subjects to discuss.
It is important to discuss such these issues.
For this topic ( Euthanasia)....
It happened with my aunt in the past ... i was standing near her bed in the hospital ..looking at her face, how she couldn't bear the pain....her eyes were telling me please stop the unbearable pain..her hands were tied to the bed.
It is not easy to see her suffering... and in the same time can't stop her pain..
because my religion says you can't do that, it is not allow for you to take away his life.
The ethical question is:
Whether one has the right to take away life?
On religions grounds many will say no ,it is nothing but suicide.
In all countries attempts to commit suicide is a crime,
so if we look at this subject in this way ,it is very unethical and anti relegions.
About a patient is in mental depression but otherwise healthy, we do not have this kind of patients. Our religion Islam ordered us if someone feels depressed, he must read Quran and pray to Allah. I have never hear about someone here wanted to die or someone tried to kill him/her self. All of that are banned in Islam.
But about the 2nd situation, when a patient has massive injuries ......etc, I don't know. They do not euthanize him/her. But in my opinion, I think it is better for him/her to die. This is the only situation I think we can euthanize someone because we help him by that way.
The right to die with dignity is different I think. If I am dying and cannot recover, I feel that I should have the right to refuse to have tubes shoved in every opening of my body and be kept alive like a tomato on the vine. If my brain is dead and my body can be kept in a bed for years by modern medicine, I feel that it would not be living. The body would be an empty shell without brain or spirit. That is just my opinion. There may be cases where a different answer could be ethically correct.