SDLA 4: Activity 1 Palliative care continues to evolve in providing better end-of-life care and so does nursing care. Thus, nursing practice is enhanced to satisfy the demand of the palliative care. A nurse provides complex care and fulfils the needs of the patients. Nursing involves in caring work, which focus on patient experiencing agony in palliative and haematological cancer care. Nurses worked in a taxing environment, that can be highly stressful, and often they experience physical, psychological and spiritual exhaustion.
An Integrative Review. JAN Journal of Advanced Nursing, 1744. Karlsson, M. B.-F. (2015). A Qualitative Metasynthesis From Nurses’ Perspective When Dealing With Ethical Dilemmas and Ethical Problems in End-of-Life Care. International Journal for Human Caring, 40-48.
There are three implications that would occur if a change in law were past, one would be the change in palliative care. Adequate palliative care is a prerequisite to the legalization of medical aid in dying. Patients should never have to choose death because of unbearable pain, which can be treated but cannot be accessed. It is wrong to deny grievously ill patients the option of medical aid in dying because of systematic inadequacies in the delivery of palliative care. Safeguarding patients by building a strong patient physician relationship must be established so that there is no foul play in the outcome.
The concept and ideology behind Physician-Assisted Suicide within the contemporary generation has become an exceptionally sensitive and controversial issue as multiple factors conglomerate to define if Physician-Assisted Suicide is justifiable within the grounds of ethical understanding and moral principles. The idea concerning PAS is based on the grounds of rational and irrational thinking as in if death is a rational choice above all other alternatives (Wittwer 420).
Robaczynski testified, and one of the most important duties of the nurse is to act as patient advocate, their autonomy, rights, dignity, safety, and well-being, but there are no reasons that justify Ms. Robaczynski’s acts to disconnect the respirator and let the patient die. The main obligation of a nurse is to the patient’s health, including end-of-life care, such as comfort measures, pain management, and social, psychological, and emotional support until the last day of their lives, never terminate the life of the patient deliberately. That is for sure, active killing, and the merely intent to overruled these values in which the nursing profession is based, is unethical and
It is considered Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS), the physician provides the resource of euthanasia, and the terminally ill patient uses it on themselves. They have no hope. They do not believe things can get better. They do not want to be strong and fight. They want to give up.
In the documentary, Bill Moyers talks to three terminally ill patients, their families, and their doctors about the concerns with physician-assisted suicide (PAS). PAS allows a terminally ill patient to hasten an inevitable and unavoidable death through a lethal dose. The patients considered PAS in order to end their prolonged suffering. The legal role of advance directives in end of life issues allows a patient to specify how he wishes to be treated by a healthcare provider during a progressively weakened state. Advance directives may provide patients with freedom to choose end of life treatment, but moral and religious implications, the ethical battle between a physician’s duty to care and inner-conscious, and state laws pose threats to PAS.
Though, in this paper, I have addressed several points that Dennis Plaisted has presented on why we should not legalize physician assisted suicide due to the issues with autonomy that convince the public that the state does not care enough to preserve the lives of those with less than six months to live. I argued that the limits of who and when an ill patient may be allowed to receive PAS are present for the state to relieve the pain of the ill who wish to have control over their death, and that it is only an alternative option for those patients. I considered a counterargument to my criticism, which argues that the state and doctors shouldn’t allow for PAS, as it gives the impression that the state does not care about the lives of the terminally ill. Just as well, the reputation of doctors as healers would be compromised if they supported this form of treatment. However, I explained that the quality of life is more valuable than forcing someone who is ill to suffer until their natural death.
The medical field is filled with opportunities and procedures that are used to help improve a patient’s standard of living and allow them to be as comfortable as possible. Physician assisted suicide (PAS) is a method, if permitted by the government, that can be employed by physicians across the world as a way to ease a patient’s pain and suffering when all else fails. PAS is, “The voluntary termination of one's own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician.”-Medicinenet.com. This procedure would be the patient’s decision and would allow the patient to end their lives in a more peaceful and comfortable way, rather than suffering until the illness takes over completely. Physician assisted suicide should be permitted by the government because it allows patients to end their suffering and to pass with dignity, save their families and the hospital money, and it allows doctors to preserve vital organs to save
It provides a competent patient with a prescription medication to use with the primary intention of ending his or her own life. Physician-assisted suicide has its proponents and its opponents. This procedure is not to be taken lightly. All patients pursuing PAS should be evaluated. It is required that “...a patient's request for assistance with a hastened death should generate a thorough evaluation of the patient's motives and attempts at ameliorating the patient's suffering”(NCBI).
The dying patient no longer has quality of life, they have lost their independence, are lonely, are forced to endure inevitable pain, are publicly humiliated, are suffering immensely, and are forced to watch their loved ones grieve because of them. It is an innate Constitutional Right to choose how to die, since we all will die. There comes a point when the poking and prodding becomes too much, when the patient wants to just die in silence in the loving arms of their
Ethics of Physician Assisted Suicide Physician - Assisted suicide is defined as, “suicide by a patient facilitated by means (as a drug prescription) or by information (as an indication of a lethal dosage) provided by a physician aware of the patient 's intent.” ("Physician-Assisted Suicide "). As a Christian, my world view belief is that physician assistant suicide (PAS) is wrong and goes against God’s plan. The Christian world view is not shared by everyone. For example, some countries such as Switzerland and states such as Oregon, Montana, Washington and Vermont have implemented physical assisted suicides (PAS) laws.
The questions of ethics weighs heavily on palliative care in today's world. Nurses have the responsibility of promoting and restoring health, preventing illnesses, and alleviating suffering. Through the implementation of palliative care, patients receive treatment for their pain and other physiological, emotional, and physical issues. The mission of palliative care is to assist the sick or dying to live their lives to the fullest with the utmost quality of care until natural death occurs (Fernandez, 2015). The missions ethical value lives up to the foundation of medical ethics as well.
A very controversial topic lately is that of euthanasia. Physician assisted suicide is a very debatable ethical issue because people have different morals. I argue that in some cases it is ethical and others it is not. I believe that if someone is going to die, that there is absolutely no cure available that if they want to die via physician assisted suicide that is their choice. One of the main reasons that people chose to die via PAS is because they are in pain and don’t want their families to see them miserable.
I completely agree with the palliative sedation in the healthcare system. I think that if you have to use a drug to calm someone down or to help them when a doctor isn’t able too, then use whatever you can. But what I’m not for is using it to end an elderly person’s life quicker just because you don’t have time to deal with them any longer or don’t have the funds to take care of them. I agree where the paper says “Doctors who perform it say it is based on carefully thought-out ethical principles in which the goal is never to end someone’s life, but only to make the patient more comfortable.” You should want the person you love or your patient to be as comfortable as possible so they won’t suffer or go through pain any longer.
