Journal 1

Alex Marr
Journal 1
October 5, 2014

The first article I viewed for the beginning of my research was "Bioethics," posted in the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying and found through the Gale Virtual Reference Library.  The article begins by explaining the general definition of bioethics and its relation to health care.  All physicians take a hippocratic oath that promises that they will always do what they can in order to help the patient. However, with recent and complex medical technology, patients' rights have come more into the spotlight.  The article then proceeds to talk about the ethics conflict of withdrawing support for the terminally ill, giving a concrete example of a patient case that went to the supreme court.  The article concludes by explaining of how bioethicists have taken a larger role in hospitals and how a better framework is needed regarding the decision making for patients on life support.

First of all, this article taught me a lot about health care and patients' rights, specifically, terminally ill patients on life support.  Life support can be a valuable tool in health care but can also be a touchy topic when a patient is brain dead and has no chance of recovering.  Doctors then will have to eventually, "pull the plug."  Even though every physician has taken the hippocratic oath, they still make the decision to end someone's life.  This makes me think more about the decision-making process and what factors go into the decision.  Some believe it should be the family's right to end their patient's life.  But what if the patient has no family?  Life support is also very expensive and can cost thousands of dollars just for a day.  This also makes me think and contemplate whether cost should be a prime factor in determining whether someone lives or dies.  Regardless of who makes the decision, this article has led my thoughts to a new idea of establishing a better, more concrete decision making process for when and under what circumstances that life support should be withdrawn.  Should life support be used in the first place?  Also, by creating a better decision making process, it would also create more jobs in hospitals for ethicists and thus help the economy.  While I still don't have a concrete answer to who should make the decision regarding life support, I have explored and found information that has led me to new ideas that I can compare with my future research.

While reading the article, many questions were risen  in my thinking.  Why is life support even used in the first place?  Wouldn't it get rid of all the ethical problems if we just pretended like we didn't have it? Life support is generally used for terminally ill patients who will die eventually.  While it may sound cruel, letting them die could stop giving families false hope and prevent doctors from having to make the call despite their hippocratic oath.  This article also brought new ideas into my head such as why isn't there a better process for determining when life support gets withdrawn.  If ethics is such a large problem because of it, then why not just hire a new group of specially trained people to come up with a decision making process?  This can create jobs and stimulate the economy, an idea I never thought of going into my research.  While continuing my research in the future, I'd like to learn more about how physicians feel regarding withdrawing life support and learning more about how the overall process works.