Psychiatrists In Dr. Sharma's 'Abyss Of The Mind'

In the article ‘Who’s Crazy Here, Anyway?’, Rosenhan’s reason for research was because Rosenhan doubted whether the characteristics that lead to psychological diagnoses reside in the patients themselves or in the situations and contexts in which the observers find the patients. The hypothesis generated by Rosenhan was, that the staff will recognize the sanity of the patients, question their diagnosis and follow to release them. The objective was to observe whether personal or environmental factors dictate mental health diagnosis and professional treatment. Rosenhan recruited eight subjects which consisted of three women and five men, one graduate student, three psychologists, one pediatrician, one psychiatrist, one painter, and one homemaker.

In Chapter 3 of Opening Skinner’s Box, “On Being Sane in Insane Places,” Lauren Slater discusses the contentious issue psychiatrists faced in 1972 after psychologist David Rosenhan conducted his most famous experiment, proving how psychiatrists already label patients when they walk through the door to be evaluated. The author, Slater is a psychologist herself in which her writing in this chapter is supportive to Rosenhan’s findings. This may limit supporting arguments on crediting psychiatric conceptualization. The meaning of behavior can easily be misunderstood, a patient can be diagnosed according to the doctor’s capacity of knowledge to specific behaviors.

“ The top mission for the counseling center on campus is keeping their students’ safety, so after a couple times I talk to my doctor about “suicide”, they told me if I keep the dangerous idea, they would contact hospitals,” said Danny, “I know their dilemma, but I just have much pressure when I knew I would be hospitalized. Then I tried to digest the bad feeling by myself.”

2. The patient are mentally healthy and that they understand the alternatives are provided (e.g. continue receiving treatments) yet still want to commit suicide by doctors’ assistance. In addition, further observation should be applied if the patient is diagnosed with depression.

In a Netherlands report it tells, “Many physicians who had practiced euthanasia [form of assisted suicide] mentioned that they would be most reluctant to do so again” (Stevens 189). Everyday these physicians are faced with decisions of how to best save their patient. Now they also, have to determine if they can come to terms with ending their lives. The impact on these physicians is tremendous. Kenneth R. Stevens the Vice President of Physicians for Compassionate Care concludes, “Doctors who have participated in euthanasia and/or PAS [Physician-Assisted Suicide] are adversely affected emotionally and psychologically by their experiences” (187). Physicians, who have made the decision to help, face the consequences of their actions. They have helped someone take a life, even if it their own. Death always leaves an impression. Imagine what it must be like to be directly involved with a death. Those men and women in time will have to come to terms with their participation in Physician-Assisted Suicide.

I see [hear] examples of how that would go every single day” (Burau, 2006). I currently work in the Mental Health Unit at St. Helena Hospital, so I’ve seen the effects of this firsthand many times. Many of the patients don’t have any family or are estranged from their family because of their mental health issues. From what I’ve seen, that takes just as much of a toll on the patients as their struggle with mental health. Dealing with mental health patients can be strenuous and dangerous, just like working in any branch of emergency services. We do a lot of speaking with, calming and listening to patients, similar to what dispatchers do during 911 calls. In less than a year working in the Mental Health field I’ve dealt with many stressful situations, and had to learn to leave my work at work, another concept Burau speaks about. Working in these fields and dealing with the raw patient experiences can take a

Now if a physically healthy person who suffers from severe depression requests or seeks assistance in this manner than the physician should do everything in his power to help treat the depression and prevent a suicide including not giving the lethal medication. On the other hand if a person who is competent, has a healthy mind, but terminally ill and has been deemed so by at least two different physicians from different hospitals and suffers a tremendous amount of physical pain seeks out the assistance of physician to aid in his or her death than that doctor would be morally obligated to assist the person. Physician-assisted suicide emphasizes that the doctors or physicians roles in this is nothing more than to be the assistant in an act started by the patient. Saying that doctors are “killing” patients is technically correct it incorrectly suggests that this act is driven by the physician and brings about uneasy visions of doctors killing socially unworthy people, but this could not be further from the truth as physicians are always hesitant and wary to be partners in physician-assisted suicide but are motivated by the compassion they feel toward suffering patients that have no better alternative and seek out this assistance. One example of this is Aja Riggs of New Mexico who had been diagnosed with uterine cancer and said “ I just want the choice to end it if the suffering becomes

Physicians assisting in suicide deaths are not productive in this area because some not trained in this field of expertise. Moll assert, doctors, are of little help. They have no training in how to discuss end-of-life issues with families and patients, so they avoid the conversation and call on other staff trained in this area. (88) Moll also points out, "people wants to be cared for, even if they do not want every possible procedure performed on them." (88) The best thing for people to do is discuss their end-of-life arrangements before major decision making is needed so the doctors, hospital staff and family members would not have to deal with the stress of this situation.

David Callahan backs this idea, in that there is no way of knowing whether or not doctors are being truthful and obeying the laws put in place to allow physician assisted suicide. He explains that physicians act in private, without the public eye seeing their acts. This gives them the ability to kill patients, or assist in their suicide without anyone knowing if they are following the law. The doctor-patient relationship is usually one built on trust and confidence that the doctor will do whatever they can to help you (Timmons, 2007, pg. 359). With physician assisted suicide as an option, this gives the doctor immense power that could be mishandled, but the acts would be confidential. In both cases, unintentionally and intentionally giving a patient wrong information, the public would never know of the doctor’s harmful practice. Because of this, patients would keep going to that physician and he could keep killing his patients. The stories of Anthony Orefice and Laurie Hoirup have important implications for the topic of physician assisted suicide. Knowing that they are just two of many people who have received wrong approximations of the amount of time they had to live, indicates that medical professionals are not ready to make decisions on assisted

In David Noonan's article " Doctors Who Kill You Themselves," he discusses about the suicide, untreated and undiagnosed depression problem among doctors and physicians themselves. Noonan states that there are roughly 300 to 400 physicians attempt to suicide each year, which concludes that physicians have the majority rate of suicide compared to other areas. The author explains that the reason why the depressed doctors choose not to involved in treatment and diagnosis system because they're weary of losing reputation, income and respect as a doctor. Noonan attempts to show that, the doctors expected their mentality to be as stable as possible in order to treat the sick ones and were afraid of having their depression treatment on their record. The author notes that

One argument is that every person should be free enough to make their own medical decisions. However, in the case of physician assisted suicide, a patient’s decision is influential on medical professionals, family, friends, and other patients (Boehnlein, 1999). Also, there may be an unconscious influence by people in the patient’s lives (Boehnlein, 1999). The patient might even be depressed, and therefore, cannot be fully competent of making this type of decision (Boehnlein, 1999). If a person is depressed, they are in a different state of mind. They may be feeling helpless, and PAS seems to be the only way out. In the end, it is the physician’s decision. One can see how this puts a lot of pressure on the physician. Physicians are humans too, which means they make mistakes. If a patient is being assessed by a psychiatrist, the psychiatrist must decide if the patient actually wants to end their life, or if it is a cry for help (Boehnlein, 1999). Also, it is the psychiatrist’s duty to assess risk factors for suicide because, “Not only is this standard ethical psychiatric practice, but we can be sued if we do not take appropriate steps to screen for, or prevent, suicide” (Boehnlein, 1999, p. 11). The burden on physicians and psychiatrist is very heavy and such a decision is something that has to be very carefully made. Every aspect has to be looked

After all, we can never completely understand the unbearable life with a severe mental illness, unless we actually have the illness. “Whether a person’s life is worth living or not is an existential question and not a medical question. Doctors are not trained or qualified to answer these questions, and therefore should not be involved in them. As professionals we are obligated to maintain the integrity of our profession. We should not permit it to be misused.

An article in the journal of the American Medical Association by Ethics and Health Policy argues that “allowing physicians to assist in the suicide of hopelessly ill patients will violate the nature of

On any given day approximately fifty percent of individual’s, or 3.5 million people, with severe psychiatric disorders go untreated. In 2013, many of those became part of the more than forty-one thousand suicides in our country. These individuals may also have been the patients who were told on a daily basis, to wait thirty days to six months to see a psychiatrist. The numbers of diagnosed mental illnesses have rapidly increased in the past thirty years but yet the numbers of mental health providers have not been able to keep up with that drastic increase. While it is unclear if there is correlation with the increased recognition of mental illnesses and the number of diagnosed illnesses, it is clear to the Center for Disease Control and

When it comes to the amount of care psychiatric clinics provide, most of us will readily agree that, the amount of research into admitting a person is extensive. Where this argument usually ends, however, is on the question of what procedures the psychiatrists take to administer who is deemed mentally ill. David Rosenhan had the same idea in mind when personally volunteering him and eight friends into a mental institution. The goal; to see what patients in mental facilities endure daily and if the professionals in the facility can properly diagnose the participants. His findings confirmed, the patients were enduring daily abuse and diagnosing a patient wasn’t adequate enough to confirm someone is mentally incapacitated. I feel the amount of