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Doctors The Death Chamber By Atul Gawande Summary

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Atul Gawande, surgeon, professor of surgery at Harvard and public health researcher, explores his view on the death penalty and the research that shook his views. Gawande’s personal view on the death penalty has been transformed by the research conducted for his story “Doctors of the Death Chamber”. In this story doctors and nurses give personal accounts of their controversial roles in prison executions. Gawande’s story about capital punishment raises the question: “Is medicine being used as an instrument of death?” Prior to 1982 the United States carried out executions through hanging, gas chambers, firing squads, and electrocution. These methods were grisly and inhumane. Prisoners sometimes took up to twenty minutes to die. Some had to be electrocuted several times while screaming in agony. In 1977 Dr. Deutsch created a method of execution involving several different kinds of drugs to humanely induce death. Officials liked this method of execution as it medicalized the process and was easier to witness. Gawande makes …show more content…

On February 14, 2006, a United States district court issued an unprecedented ruling in the execution of murderer Michael Morales. In order to uphold the Constitutions Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment California was ordered to have a physician, specifically an anesthesiologist, personally supervise the execution by lethal injection to determine the prisoner’s state of consciousness (p101). The American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) strongly opposed this ruling stating that “Physicians are healers not

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Clayton Lockett was executed using a three drug cocktail (Midazolam, Pancuronium, and Potassium Chloride) during his execution after being injected he awakened and died a horribly painful death 40 minutes later. The state of Oklahoma was investigated as to why he woke up during the process. They soon sound out that the needle that was put in his vein didn’t fully penetrate his vein. After the investigation the state of Oklahoma had a new protocol to follow.

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But the Arkansas court issued a death sentence against him and force him medication before the time of his execution on January 2004. Arkansas court puts doctors in dilemma, adhere to their medical oath or criminal law. Regarding to the medical oath, doctors are not allowed to participate in the execution or use of drugs to take people life. Duty’s doctors are helping and treatment of patients not killing the patient. (Eisenberg, 2004).

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Execution is the act of carrying out of a sentence of death on a condemned person. This is carried out either by lethal injection or electrocution. Execution despite its barbaric nature has survived in many legal system and will continue to because it: reinforces a state of security of the general public, detters other individuals from committing such crimes, and enforces the concept of cause and effect within the legal system. In the text “The Penalty of Death” H.L. Mencken discusses not only why he supports executions, but also the ripple effects this action has on a society. While in a text entitled “Death Penalty,” Anna Quindlen discusses her objections to execution, because, as she states:”it consists of stooping to the level of the

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The Demented Doctor “The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we’re doing it.” said Josef Mengele. He knew his own wrong doings all too well. This seemed to be the hard cold truth to every soul that was taken by the “Angel of Death”.

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The Supreme Court has observed that a method of execution violates the Eighth Amendment if it inherently involves “torture or a lingering death” or is “inhuman and barbarous.” This was brought into question in the case of Glossip V. Gross when Oklahoma introduced the drug midazolam as a new execution drug. The case also brings into question whether the court is required to supply a form of execution when the government cannot find one itself. In Baze v. Rees the three-drug protocol was observed for lethal injection by at least 30 states, where barbiturate, an anesthesia that causes the person to go unconscious and two other drugs which paralyzed the prisoner eventually causes them to go into cardiac arrest.

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“He’s dead, you can’t save him, there is nothing you can do about it” this sentence haunts medical professionals as doctors are trained to save lives. Perhaps what’s even more haunting is a doctor ending a patient’s life. Samuel Shem’s the House of God sheds light on the issue through its intern, Roy who goes through a rough time after killing a patient. Roy falsely thought he killed the patient to release his suffering, however, that’s not the case as he killed him to make peace with his own death.

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Gawande was able to find four physicians who participated in executions at prisons who were willing to talk about their experience. They shared what their role was and why they participated. Because of the sensitive nature of capital punishment and people’s strong opinions about it the physicians who participated remained anonymous. Each doctor had slightly different reasons for participating, the first doctor knew the warden of a prison in his town and first did it to help the warden out. The doctor started by doing nothing more than standing behind a current and watching a heart monitor, when it flat lined he sent a different physician out to listen to the heart and check for a pulse and assure the inmate was dead.

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Pickert, Kate. “A Brief History of Lethal Injection.” Time, Time Inc., 10 Nov. 2009, content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1815535,00.html. Accessed 29 Mar. 2017.

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Atul Gawande’s book, “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End,” explores different themes such as, aging, death, and the mishandling of both aging and death by the medical profession’s. This book also addresses what it means to live well near the end of life. It is not just to survive, not just to be safe, not just to stay alive as long as the medical technology allows, but, according to the author it is about what living truly means to an individual. The author describes that the idea of “Being Mortal” developed as he watched his elderly father go through a steep decline in his health and the eventual death. He soon realized that during his medical education and training he was never taught how to help his patients with managing

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The death penalty has been one of the most controversial debates in the United States. Some believe that an eye for an eye is an effective mean of punishment while others believe that such mean of punishment is not effective in modern society. Edward Koch believes the death penalty affirms the sanctity of life. In the article by Edward Koch, published in The New Republic, “Death and Justice: How Capital Punishment Affirms Life,’ he utilizes the rhetorical devices of ethos, pathos and logos to justify his position for the death penalty towards the people opposing the death penalty.

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Nazi doctors made injections with lethal germs, sex change operations, removal of organs and limbs." (Bulow) Josef Mengele did about nine different experiments on his victims or patients. One experiment was the "Experiments with Poison." They did this experiment by putting poison on their food secretly. In about September 1944 the victims were shot with poison bullets.

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It seems as though the state of California has been on a continuum with the death penalty. Historically, executions were carried out by firing squads, hangings, gas chambers and lethal injection. In 1972, the Supreme Court of California ruled in People v. Anderson that the current death penalty laws were unconstitutional and called for a suspension of capital punishment. Then was reinstated in 1978 with executions carried out in the gas chambers at San Quentin State Prison. With the introduction of the standard lethal injection in 1993, it has been modified to support the new chamber specifically for lethal injection.

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There are lethal injections, electrocution, lethal gas, firing squad, and hanging. Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a combination of poisons into a person with a fatal dose of drugs (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium solution) for the express purpose of causing immediate death (Lethal Injection). Electrocution is death caused by electric shock, electric current passing through the body. The word is derived from "electro" and "execution", but it is also used for accidental death. Gas Chamber is an airtight room that can be filled with poisonous gas as a means of execution (Google).

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In recent years, there have been debates regarding the death penalty, also known as Capital Punishment. Introduced by the European settlers, the death penalty was usually given to people like George Kendall, a captain who was supposedly a spy for the Spaniards during the early 1600’s. Slowly it evolutioned from hanging towards what we now call lethal injections, used to kill a criminal while not inflicting pain. Over the years, the death penalty has gained many supporters. Due to this, there have been countless disputes regarding what should be done about the death penalty.

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While it is perhaps less cruel than older forms of execution, such as the electric chair, it is still very unconstitutional. In an article about lethal injection, the author states,“The current use of lethal injections constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution” (Lethal Injection). The government bases many things off of the constitution, yet they fail to see how unconstitutional

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