Cindy Ziyi Zhuang
MDA 110 Contemporary Issues and Cases in Healthcare
Midterm Paper
03/01/2015
Beyond Caring In his fiction “Cutting for Stone”, Dr. Abraham Verghese presents a story of Marion and Shiva Stone, conjoined twins who are separated at birth by their presumed surgeon father, Dr. Thomas Stone. The twins were orphaned almost immediately after they were born. Their mother, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, an Indian nurse nun at Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Dr. Thomas Stone’s perfect surgical assistant, dies from uterine rupture during the childbirth. Their presumed father, being shocked by the catastrophic death of his loved one, leaves the twins to two of his colleagues, Dr. Kalpana Hemlatha and Dr. Ahbi Ghosh, who
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But down to its most fundamental level, patients’ needs is nothing more than the presence of someone that could offer them the great comfort they long for. Nonetheless, it is sad to see that this humanistic aspect is fading away and being corroded by the rapidly modernizing health care settings. Accompanying with the enormous technological progress, medicine as a modern science has been affected in many positive ways. However, the timeless tradition and the everlasting secret of medicine is merely care giving. Modern medicine has been relying too much on technology, which is cool, but also very cold from a humanistic aspect. All the patients are presented by a series of numbers via binary signals of the internet. Nowadays, medicine is more about running tests and diagnosing based on numbers, as opposed to investigating symptoms upon the physician’s observational skills and comprehensive knowledge. As bedside caring becomes less concerned as it was in the old days, the diminishing of the sense of caring in medical professionals appears as a side effect. There is no doubt that technology enables medical professionals to perform all types of fancy tasks, though it is their offering of compassion that comforts the patients the most. And this quintessence of medical practice ought not to be overlooked at any point of the history of medicine. There is a frequently recurring keynote in Verghese’s story, where the chief examiner poses
Stone cutter, king in the shirt the lesson are for king of the shirt is to be happy what you have and not what u don't have.The first story teaches us that you should behalf what you have and you don't have cause not everything will not always make you happy. You don't everything to be happy.The next story is the stone cutter the lesson is to be yourself and don't try to be some else. The lesson in both story's is that be happy to be
Having worked in critical care and the long-term care setting as a nurse, I have notice the importance of providing comfort in many different situations. Nurses are constantly assessing patients, families, and other members of the healthcare team to provide comfort by using appropriate protocols and simple interventions that are in place. This can be extremely difficult because meeting a person’s expectations of comfort are all different and can only be defined by the patient. Therefore, I decided to explore the comfort theory developed by Katharine Kolcaba (March & McCormack, 2009). According to the comfort theory, comfort is defined by each person’s perspective of what comfort is to them (March & McCormack, 2009). The comfort theory is noted to be beneficial to the entire healthcare team, including patients and families (Boudiab & Kolcaba, 2015). This theory can be utilized in all areas of nursing practices. According to March and McCormack, (2009) the comfort theory was introduced by Katharine Kolcaba to help patients and families by providing comfort through a holistic approach. Through this approach, interventions are developed to meet the patients physical, psychospiritual, environmental, and sociocultural goals (Goodwin, Sener, & Steiner, 2007). These contexts are greatly related to the metaparadigms of nursing which are person, environment, health, and nursing (March & McCormack, 2009). The three forms of the comfort theory she
that directs human behavior.4 Patients have implicit and explicit comfort needs that, when met, strengthen them and motivate them to perform better in therapy, rehabilitation, and learning/adhering to new health regimens.2 Second, needs are a force that is driven by social and cultural politics.4 Patient comfort needs are driven by expectations, and patients
To start off, increased patient satisfaction and contentment come hand in hand when nurses and doctors treat their patients with compassion and empathy. Developing compassion and care as a provider is highly beneficial to both patients and the providers. According to a research by the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics (2014), patients who are treated compassionately and with kindness by their doctor or nurse are 93 percent more satisfied with their care or service. However, the sense of compassion and care in the medical field might be under threat or harm if nurses and doctors are not capable of genuinely connecting with their patients with gentleness and warmth. A report by Geraghty, Oliver, and Lauva (2016),
I also encountered examples of chronic as opposed to acute medicine and its human implications. This brought out to me the human side of medicine and the importance of the patient-doctor relationship. Furthermore, through such one-to-one doctor–patient encounters, I also saw the importance of medicine in the aftermath of the acute clinical situation, and its role in the continuing process of support and encouragement. This was exemplified to me by a fairly young woman with an arrhythmic condition who had become fully dependent on her pacemaker and saw how she had complete trust in the judgement of her doctors. I saw how they had assured her against the risks and flaws of pacemakers and had cared for her leading up to the ablation, and then onwards to the pacemaker being installed. During my time spent with one of the registrars, I also found out just how important listening to a patient is. I saw patience and empathy for a patient who was quite unwilling to have tests done on her, and how to manage and address the concerns of those who were
Preoccupied with the new treatment technologies, the medical field has missed the opportunities provided by the digital revolution to match its internal growth with improved communication with the recipients of their service in its mission of serving its patients. Situation, where the insiders like Volandes claim that the field needs disruption, but the establishment is trying to transfer part of responsibility back to the patients (as Mulley suggests in “Stop the silent misdiagnosis: patients’ preferences matter”) leads to the conclusion that the medical es¬tab¬lish-ment has already lost communication channels with the patient. While opening the comm¬u¬ni¬ca-tion channels throughout the world has marked the digital age, the medical field missed the op-port¬¬unity to openly connect with its patients and understand their needs.
‘One of the essential qualities of the clinician is interest in humanity, for the secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient’’- Francis F Peabody. As I continued my journey in internal medicine and hematology, I realized that ethical practice and empathy are the essence of medicine every single day.
Virginia Henderson’s theory is often called a needs theory because it was developed during the period of nursing where patients needs were the primary concern. She believed that the concept of the nurse’s unique function demands that nurses understand the essential needs of man so they can help their patients make their lives as normal and productive as possible, even during illness (Henderson, 1978). Henderson’s Need Theory stresses the importance of increasing the patient’s independence so that progress would not be delayed after hospitalization. She believed that a nurse’s job is not only to care for patients but also to ensure they will be able to take care of themselves when they leave the hospital (Ahtisham & Jacoline, 2015).
Therefore, technology is always advancing in our world and new innovations are created to help patients be cured faster and in decent time. New technology has made it where the patients can order food off of touch screens and contact their doctors with emails. We have big machines that analyze patients and can look into their bodies to help diagnose the problems. The internet has helped the patients stay connected to their doctors from where ever they are at. Also, prescription drugs have made the healing process faster keep the patient healthy. With all the advancement in technology, it is important to remember that they are people and need human interactions and one on one talking. The advancement of technology as it has connected the patient to physician also disconnects the patient from one on one time
The lessons we learned from this week's stories were to be grateful and happy for what you have, and you are stronger and better than you think you are. The first story teaches us to be happy even when you don't have a lot of money. The king didn't realize he had a good life compared to others. They tried to find him a happy man's shirt but all along the king didn't realize he should've been happy and grateful. The second story The Stonecutter taught us you are stronger than you think. The Stonecutter wanted to be the biggest the best and the strongest, so he became the sun, wind and the rocks. Then he realized he was the strongest, because he could break the rock and no one else could. To summarize, these are the lessons we learned in the
The medical advancements and “improvements in twentieth century medicine involved inventions of a vast number of technologies and medical equipment for diagnosis and treatment (Anderson, 2007. p 268). These medical advancements certainly influenced health and medicine today. Technological improvements made it possible for physicians to provide medical care and more accurately diagnosis illnesses and trauma with less-invasive methods. “The accelerated growth of computer technology that began in the 1970s has paved the way for many dramatic changes in medicine (Bartkowki &
In healthcare, there is a functional and purposeful relationship that exists between the nurse, the doctor and the other interdisciplinary team. This relationship established by the healthcare team comes with a responsibility aimed at achieving a goal, which is to assist the patient to be able to gain independence and progress after hospitalization or rehabilitation. What is paramount to the healthcare team is focusing on the basic human needs of the patient gearing towards health which is a building block of health and wellness. With this being said, the writer chooses Virginia Henderson’s theory of needs because it gives an insight or guides the nurse for what to look for in caring for our patient’s needs with her 14 components of nursing care which still apply to modern nursing care and practice up till present day . As Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) working in the Transitional Care Unit (TCU), her theory is made visible through my patient’s recovery process experienced every single day. “Henderson 's principles and practice of nursing fall under the category of grand theory that can be applied to many types of nursing” (Nicely & DeLario, 2011).
Society is not the only dynamic entity in the doctor-patient relationship. Medicine as a science is in perpetual change, while medicine as an art is marked by constancy and fidelity. The science of medicine and the rapid change of technology applied to medicine, involving the possibility that there may be conflict between the practice, innovation and what the public demand. This conflict could undermine the social contract of medicine and it must be addressed firmly. Provided that the practice is challenged by new technology, the right course of action cannot be dictated by morality and standards based on previous experiences. When the correct course of action is unclear, dialogue is necessary to find a consensus between what is right and
The apparatus of healthcare goes far beyond the doctor, nurses, and whole array of medical personnel that contribute to treating and curing patients. This system requires a multidisciplinary approach of healing, not just in the physical aspects. Therefore, this approach may require proper communication and trust between the patients and the doctor. Without them, successful treatment is difficult. However, the role patients play is crucial to gaining a better understanding of how this system works and whether it is effective. It is important to establish the expected norm of relations between patients and doctors in western medicine; when a patient visits the hospital, they are usually seen as unknowledgeable about the inner workings of
Classical medicine operates in a climate of rational discourse, scientific knowledge accretion and the acceptance of ethical standards that regulate its activities. Criticism has centered on the excessive technological emphasis of modern medicine and on its social strategy aimed at defending exclusiveness and the privileges of professional status. Alternative therapeutic approaches have taken advantage of the eroded public image of medicine, offering treatments based on holistic philosophies that stress the non-rational, non-technical and non-scientific approach to the unwell, disregarding traditional diagnostic categories and concentrating on enhancing subjective comfort and well-being, but remaining oblivious to the