Ethics And Palliative Care For Terminally Ill Patients

Abstract: This paper discusses the medical ethics of Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS). Focusing on the ideas of legal vs illegal, the different views of PAS will both be addressed. While active euthanasia is illegal, passive euthanasia, or allowing natural death, is completely legal everywhere. PAS will help patients end suffering for themselves at the end of their lives, as well as the family's. The price of the drug may be expensive but the price of medical treatments continues to rise. The Hippocratic Oath does not support the aid in ending a life, however it has been changed in the past. Many citizens are afraid that is PAS was considered legal, it would grow into something even more illegal being debated. Also, the religious aspect of the end of life had conflicting views as some believe PAS is ending suffering, a good deed, and other believe PAS is not respecting a human life. PAS is only legal in seven states but has gained the attention of many others and other places around the world.

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The ethical issues that we have had a hard time fulfilling are central to autonomy, beneficence and truth telling. The ANA recognizes autonomy as an agreement to respect another’s right to self-determine a course of action, support of independent decision making. In 1990 the Patient Self Determination Act was passed by the United States Congress this act stated that competent people could make their wishes known regarding what they wanted in their end of life experience when they were possibly not competent. Also included in this Act is the durable power of attorney, which designates a competent person to assist in making end of life decisions when the induvial was no longer competent. (Beauchamp, 2009) Beneficence: compassion, taking positive action to help others, desire to do good; core principle of patient advocacy. (Beauchamp, 2009)

An ethical dilemma is a difficult situation that usually involves a conflict between moral obligations, in which to obey one would result in disobeying another (Murphy, 1997). Sedation is an ethical dilemma in palliative care because on one side it helps to relieve suffering for patients who are terminally ill and almost at the end of their lives. However, at the same time, sedation is making the patient deprived of certain bioethical principles such as autonomy, the main issue with palliative sedation is that it prohibits the patient from changing his or her decision, once sedation is commenced and informed consent also becomes complex (Cooney, 2005). The writer is in the favour of palliative sedation because it is an effective symptom controlled strategy for the patients who are nearly at the end of their lives. Moreover, it is believed that by providing sedation to a patient induce unconsciousness, which makes the patient completely unaware of the external world and tend to reduce the suffering by considering ethical and moral principles. However, some people think palliative sedation as euthanasia, which cause death because of making the patient deprive of nutrition and hydration while giving sedation. Ethical principles are going to be discussed in this essay such as autonomy, beneficence, non- maleficence and justice. Moreover, this essay also going to put light on current research

Over the last several decades there have been dramatic developments in Western medical ethics. The form of bioethics now widely adhered to in the United States is 'principlism', an approach originally advocated by the American philosophers Beauchamp and Childress. Principlism argues that in medico-ethical dilemmas, including end of life healthcare situations, ethical principles must be applied (Kessel & Meran, 1998). The following ethical principles are related to advance directives: respect for autonomy (self-determination), non-maleficence (not inflicting harm), beneficence (doing good), and justice (some concept of fairness) (Kessel & Meran, 1998). The leading principle, Autonomy, is the fundamental standard that safeguards a patient the liberty to choose and to govern what happens to their person, in so far as those choices do not harm others. “Autonomy implies that people have an inherent right to make treatment decisions and should be active participants in their own care.” (Kessel

Voluntary Euthanasia has been considered a controversial topic for many decades. The idea of committing an act that involves the taking of human life is not one that many people would care to discuss openly. The main argument is that a person who has been diagnosed with an incurable illness and is in extreme pain and their ability to move has been limited, while that person still has control over their destiney should they be allowed take their own life (Bowie, R.2001). The worldwide debate weather one should be allowed to end a life is still one of the biggest ethical issues. The attempt to providing the rights of the individual is in conflict with the moral values of society. Voluntary Euthanasia has been highly rejected by many religious and pro-life institutions.

The topic for my case study is Physician-Assisted Dying (PAD). PAD allows terminally ill patients to choose to die on their own terms before they become medically and mentally incapable of normal function. However, this option as an End-of-Life (EOL) choice is illegal in most states. There are five states where PAD is legal. These states are: Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont, and California (Gostin & Roberts p.250). After a strict screening process to make sure the patient is mentally sound. A medical professional must give the patient a prescription for a lethal dose of medication to be taken at the patients choosing by the patient. There are several ethical arguments when it comes to PAD.

The “Right to Die” (Euthanasia) should be further looked into as an option for terminally ill patients and not considered unethical. There has been an issue concerning the topic of “Human Euthanasia” as an acceptable action in society. The research compiled in conjunction with an educated opinion will be the basis for the argument for voluntary Euthanasia in this paper. Patients suffering from an incurable illness, exhausting all medical treatments, should be given the freedom of choice to continue their path of suffering or end it at their own will. “The Right to die” is not suicide, as you are fully aware that death will be certain, as Euthanasia spares the individual of additional pain.

As the role of pharmacists in patient care continues to grow, the ethical challenges they face every day also increases. After the discussion with my preceptor about ethical situations that a pharmacist can experience, we decided to explore further about the controversial topic of end of life care, specifically avoidance of killing.

With major advancement in medical treatments, it is now possible to keep a patient alive, which would not have been possible in former times. This has made end of life issue one of the most controversial issues in healthcare. Medical improvements have set the stage for ethical and legal controversies about not only the patient’s rights but also the family’s rights and the medical profession’s proper role. It is critical that any decision made in such situation is ethical and legal to preserve the rights of the patient and also protect the healthcare institution involved. It is very important when making decisions to discontinue treatments to make sure all other alternatives have been explored.

Physician have for centuries helped patients to die-that is,to endure the process that ends in their death.The question is whether physician should help them kill themselves and whether the law should allow physicians to do so.Morality concerns how our choices bear on the intrinsic goods of human persons such goods as life and health,knowledge,friendship and others.We ought to care for every person,and that means helping them to attain or preserve these intrinsic goods.Since these goods are the aspects of persons, to act directly against any of them is to act against the person herself.Human life is not something we have;rather one’s life is identical with one’s concrete reality, taht is identical with oneself.So a choice to kill a human being,even

With the passage of the Death with Dignity Act of 1997 it brought with it the topics of moral and ethical issues that surround the medical community and those roles nurses should play when assisting patients that may want to have this method as an option. The article begins with the Death with Dignity Act of 1997 and the 2 opposing sides views on this issue. On one hand, you have those who feel that prescribing drugs to end life would be a violation of previous laws, established professional ethics leading to abuses in the medical community if allowed to be practiced. Others view is that since death ultimately releases one from suffering, it is already part of the nurses professional, ethical, and moral duty to help their patients to ease any pain and suffering.

The deliberate act of ending another 's life, given his or her consent, is formally referred to as euthanasia. At present, euthanasia is one of the most controversial social-ethical issues that we face, in that it deals with a sensitive subject matter where there is much uncertainty as to what position one ought to take. Deliberately killing another person is presumed by most rational people as a fundamental evil act. However, when that person gives his or her consent to do so, this seems to give rise to an exceptional case. This can be illustrated in the most common case of euthanasia, where the person who is willing to die suffers from an illness that causes great pain, and will result in his or her demise in the not-so-distant future.

Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are actions that hit at the core of what it means to be human - the moral and ethical actions that make us who we are, or who we ought to be. Euthanasia, a subject that is so well known in the twenty-first century, is subject to many discussions about ethical permissibility which date back to as far as ancient Greece and Rome , where euthanasia was practiced rather frequently. It was not until the Hippocratic School removed it from medical practice. Euthanasia in itself raises many ethical dilemmas – such as, is it ethical for a doctor to assist a terminally ill patient in ending his life? Under what circumstances, if any, is euthanasia considered ethically appropriate? More so, euthanasia raises

There are many ethical issues that the medical field faces daily. One major issue that is a common debate recently is death and dying and the ethical dilemmas associated with this stage in life. There are many different routes a patient can take when they are diagnosed with a terminal illness, two routes that are often up for debate are palliative care and physician assisted suicide. Many ethical concepts are brought up in the debate of these routes of care, sometimes even conflicting one another. Since medicine has advanced over many years we are experiencing a growing population of elders. With this increase in the elderly population, the debate of death and dying has become an important topic to