Ethics In Charlie Gordon's Flowers For Algernon

476 Words2 Pages

Penland
"Flowers for Algernon" is the short story of a man named Charlie Gordon. Charlie is a 37 year old man. He is not very smart. He has an IQ lower than 70, but he wants to be smart like the rest of the people in his life. He doesn’t want to be dumb anymore. Charlie has an operation done to him to make him smarter. In order to get this operation done Charlie has to take a series of tests. Charlie's doctors, Dr. Nemur and Dr. Straus, need him to take the tests to see if he is the right person to use for the operation. They do use him for the operation, the operation they give him is supposed to make him very smart. When the doctors preform the operation they are supposed to make very ethical medical decisions. Ethics are moral standards that show you right from …show more content…

They were supposed to ask questions. These questions are supposed to tell the doctors if there is anything wrong with doing the operation to the patient. These questions are very important in making ethical decisions because it makes sure that the patient will be fine with the operation. You need to ask these questions to make sure the patient is not under any real risk, says Dobrin Arthur. Dobrin Arthur is the author of the website "Five Steps to Better Ethical Decision Making" Dr. Nemur and Straus did not ask Charlie these questions.
Dr. Nemur and Dr. Straus did not act ethically when they preformed the operation on Charlie Gordon. They did not act ethically because the doctors did not want what was best for Charlie, they wanted what was best for them. They did not want to help Charlie they wanted to help themselves. The operation was not not preformed in the patients best interest. It is very important that the doctors want to do what is best for the patient, but that is not that case in this situation. The doctors were supposed to tell Charlie what the side affects were of the operation. Charlie didn’t know the side affects of the