Ethical Issues
社会道德essay代写 The case revolves around the actions of doctors after the incident of Katrina, the storm that left many wounded. What is sad…
Introduction
The case revolves around the actions of doctors after the incident of Katrina, the storm that left many wounded. What is sad to see is how the lead physician took matters into her own hands and decided to move forward with the administration of wrongful dosage of medicine, simply because she felt that the patient was unlikely to survive. During this time, many doctors took decisions that should have been properly thought about instead of being left to one medical practitioner. When asked about the consequences and resulting deaths of many of the patients, many of whose condition’s weren’t so bad that they needed to be “put to rest”, the lead doctor, Dr. Anna Pou, when asked about her actions stated that she did what she thought was right and that doctors should be allowed to take such decisions in times of natural disasters where a large number of people require medical attention.
Ethical Issues 社会道德essay代写
One of the biggest ethical issues this case sheds light upon is the medical practitioner’s decision to end someone’s life without the consent of the individual or any of their family members. Additionally, it sheds light on the alarming thinking of many doctors that they have the right to decide whether or not death is better for their patient. Having someone’s life in their hands, while treating it as something trivial should never be allowed to happen.
Another bigger issue is that these actions were not treated as a first-degree murder. Even though the physician/ medical practitioner, knowingly and deliberately ended someone’s life because they deemed it fit. Another major issue was taking the decision of DNR, i.e. Do Not Resuscitate, which majorly reduces the chances of a patient’s survival. This decision was taken for patients who were extremely injured and had a high likelihood of dying. However, this decision was taken eve for patients who may have survived had they not been administered lethal dosage of Morphine or any other drug, which is beneficial in smaller quantities, and can cause immense damage if given a higher dosage. Initially the number of patients identified to have been laid to rest in this manner was less, but it was later identified to be over 17 people.
Physicians used DNR as the measure of the status of health, which should have never been the case. Many cases have resulted in fully healthy and functional patients, who had to be resuscitated once. Not only is this a factually unreliable measure, but it also resulted in lack of assessment on part of the physicians and doctors at the scene. In my opinion, doctors are the caretakers of life, and they should do everything in their power to save lives, instead of taking them.
Conclusion
There are many other ethical issues with the decisions taken at Memorial Hospital. However, the most important of these is that one person should not be allowed to take such decisions, especially in times of stress and panic. I think that the hospital staff made some grave errors in their judgment, which eventually led to many unnecessary deaths.
References 社会道德essay代写
Daniel Herman, Mistakes at Memorial: Consent and Distribution of Care in Emergency Situations, retrieved 17th November 2017 from;
Sherik Fink, The Deadly Choices at Memorial, retrieved 17th November 2017 from;
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30doctors.html?pagewanted=all
