The Dilemma in the Movie WIT
The film WIT, produced by Simon Bosanquet, clearly defines poor bedside manner in all levels of medicine, from the radiologist who performed the x-ray to the physicians in charge of the patient’s care. The film is based on a seventeenth century poet professor, Vivian Bearing, who gets diagnosed with stage IV ovarian cancer that has already metastasized. Professor Bearing goes through intense series of experimental chemotherapy agents that are detrimental to her health, yet everyone in the medical team seems to ask the question, “how are you feeling today?” In reality no one seems to really show true interest to what she is going through. The film portrays a lack of empathy for Professor Bearing, giving a sense of loneliness and hopelessness. The professors’ rights seem to be taken from her and the medical professional fail to treat her with the dignity and respect she deserves.
Ethical Dilemma
An ethical dilemma occurs when a person is forced to choose between two or more alternatives, none which is ideal (Finkelman & Kenner, 2014). In the film WIT, the major ethical dilemma presented in the film, were the treatment option that were offered to her by the physician. The physician manipulated the situation when he informs professor Barrings of her terminal cancer in its advance stages. Not given the time to process her diagnosis, the physician continues to talk about an experimental chemotherapy treatment as if it were her only option,
An ethical dilemma is defined as a moral issue, where a situation has two equivalent undesirable alternatives and neither choice will resolve the ethical predicament.
In the movie Wit, Professor Bearings is diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. She spends her days in the hospital with her nurse, doctor, and the doctor’s assistant (Ms. Bearing’s former student) undergoing aggressive chemotherapy. Although the movie was good, there were many scenes that made me cringe. Throughout the entire movie, the medical staff used non-therapeutic communication and were unethical toward their patient. They made Professor Bearings feel inferior, pushed medical treatment without considering her thoughts and feelings, and never explained exactly what was going on. I felt empathy while watching Professor Bearings go through her last days being treated the way she was.
Based on Margaret Edson play, the 2001 film “Wit” is regarding an english professor Dr. Vivian Bearing who is specialized in the study of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets. Dr. Bearing is diagnosed with stage four metastatic ovarian cancer and agrees to undergo an antagonistic experimental treatment. In the processes of her treatment she quotes a famous line from the Holy Sonnet by John Donne “…and death shall be no more, death thou shalt die!”(Wit, 2001). Dr. Bearing’s anguish in not only her bodily pain but the treatment has a great strain on her mental health. In the course of her treatment, Dr. Bearing monitors her experience at the hospital and point out that she simply became a test subject for research and not a patient. The film deals with
The history of witchcraft during seventeenth century New England is inherently a history of direct confrontations within communities where relationships become tainted with suspicion, revenge and anger. The documents in Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth Century New England have retold the events and stories of Puritan New England to give the modern reader an understanding of the repressive social institutions of religion and family structure which were controlling factors that lay behind the particular cases discussed in the book. However, in order to really interpret the structure of witchcraft, it is important to consider that social tensions (most likely a dispute or argument) combined with personal or familial bad luck, were the root of
Wit is a movie which focuses on the struggle of a middle-aged college professor, Vivian Bearing, with stage four metastatic ovarian cancer who is forced to confront the reality of her imminent death. It explores her cognitive and stoic approach to her medical fate through experiencing eight cycles of chemotherapy at full dose. Wit also focuses on how she is being treated as a mere research subject and not as a human being. Her life’s viewpoint changes through her treatment duration as she compares her detached demeanor with that of the neutral and insensitive oncologist who is treating her.
As opposed to conceding that she is feeling defenseless, or does not comprehend what is going on in the clinical condition, Professor Bearing uses flashbacks to adapt to the new and recover her energy by arranging the mysterious present in the comprehensible past. She has been determined to have a propelled phase growth of cancer by Dr. Harvey Kelekian, her doctor, and has agreed to take part in a test treatment. This is the initial phase in Professor Vivian Bearing's day of work from a place of solace in her way of life as a researcher of seventeenth century verse who has made an immense commitment to the teach, to the new and awkward position of patient and example. She figures this uneasiness by recalling the early vulnerability she felt as a student communicating with her educator, the eminent senior researcher of Metaphysical Poetry, Dr. E.M. Ashford, who is discussing about
The Play Wit is a movie based on a play about a woman named Vivian Bearing whose life changed when she is told she has Stage IV ovarian cancer. All through the movie, one is presented with examples of health psychology and treatment of terminal illness. Three main themes stand out in the Wit are patient provider communication, death and caregiving.
Wit follows Dr. Vivian Bearing’s journey through chemotherapy for treatment of stage four metastatic ovarian cancer. Dr. Bearing is a demanding professor of seventeenth century literature who is very knowledgeable, especially of John Donne who explores mortality in depth. The movie starts with her diagnosis of advanced metastatic ovarian cancer. She is rushed through the facts of an experimental chemotherapy drug.
Often times in a complex situation individuals are involved in conflicting decisions to progress to a solution. The ethical dilemma may conflict with acceptable morals or behaviors but to resolve the paradox a decision has to be made. D.B.’s parents are faced with an ethical dilemma when they discover their son has an incurable disease. They could allow the illness to take its course or seek a form of treatment to slow its progression.
I found this movie interesting because I agree with what the film implied on how the universal constant about being a patient is vulnerability and loss of control. In the movie Wit, you get to see another side of the medical profession that shows disregard for medical humanities. The film tells the story of an intellectual, Vivian Bearing, being diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer, the treatment, and how she is stripped of her personal and professional status in the name of being a patient. A major theme of this film is its portrayal of the human condition in a state of dependency and need by chronicling Vivian's experimental treatment through first-person narrative, the film allows the viewers a peek into the world of a patient suffering
The play Wit by Margot Edson was an astonishing film that really shows the many ways ill patients feel towards their doctors and how doctors feel about their patients. Just like the book On death and dying by Elisabeth Kubler it explains how humans are becoming less human. For example, the film illustrates how they asked the professor how she was doing when clearly she was going through withdraws or was in that much pain that she could not answer back. The professor went through eight chemo therapy sessions to fight her ovary cancer, but instead of giving her emotional support they told her she was strong enough, and to try to fight through their new research. I’m not sure how that makes me feel it’s so horrible to think that doctors can possibly
Ethical Dilemma An ethical dilemma arises when a person, in this case Linda RN, is required to choose between two or more options (Finkelman & Kenner, 2016). In this case study, Linda is required as per hospital policy to evaluate each patient twice per shift. During this shift, there is a total of eight patients. She must also continuously monitor two suicidal patients in private rooms and in addition she must evaluate and assess a patient who shows evidence of violent behavior.
During one of her routine checkups with Dr. Posner and Dr. Kelekian, Vivian realizes that the roles that were once held important to her were flipped; she became the untreated student and her doctor’s became the ignorant teachers. Throughout the play, the major theme that connects Vivian’s academic field and the doctors’ medical fields are their devotion to understanding at a cost of the human soul. Because of Vivian’s devotion to her work, causing her to have no family or friends made her an ideal candidate for the intensive chemotherapy treatment. Vivian is portrayed to have been oblivious of her student’s needs and unable to see them as individuals. Like her, Vivian’s doctors can only see her, more specifically her illness, as a scientific
The movie I decided to watch was Wit directed by Mike Nichols. Vivian Bearing (Emma Thompson), a 48 year old well-known English professor who had a Doctorate in Philosophy, reflected back on her life as she went through the process of terminal ovarian cancer. Dr. Bearing was a strict and at times an emotionless professor who taught 17th century poetry. When going through the process of chemotherapy and other painful treatments in the attempt of curing her cancer, Dr. Bearing learned about the importance of humanity.
Vivian Bearing, a demanding and uncompromising professor of 17th century English poetry specializing in the holy sonnets of John Donne, is diagnosed with advanced (stage 4) metastatic ovarian cancer. Being an academic, she treats the news with a certain matter-of-factness much like she would her own research. Indeed, her medical team - the renowned Dr. Harvey Kelekian and his fellow, Dr. Jason Posner, who happens to be an ex-student of hers - do treat her solely like a research experiment, with a "live at all cost" mentality. The doctors recommend an experimental treatment of aggressive chemotherapy, to which she agrees. In part out of her own choice but in part out of her own personal circumstances, she decides to go through the treatment