Essay on The Terri Schiavo’s Case Analysis

The practically speaking, the case of Nancy Cruzan highlights the fact that an individual cannot rely only on telling his would be decision maker what type of care is desired should that individual become incompetent. Such evidence may not be viewed as sufficient to refuse medical treatment as happened with Nancy Cruzan. It thereby becomes important to record exactly what type of treatment should be accepted or refused if one’s decision making capacity is lost. The most common way to do this is in the form of an advance directive. Such a document would declare not only who the patient wants a surrogate decision maker, but also relates the degree of treatment desired by the patient. The presence of an advance directive makes caring for incompetent patients much easier because confusion over the patient’s wishes is avoided. Had Nancy Cruzan made an advance directive, withdrawing the artificial nutrition

Does a written document such as a living will decide when someone should die or should the verbal wishes of the incapacitated person be followed if known? Such as the controversy over when life begins, we now face the ultimate question of when does life end. In 1990, Terri Schiavo, a young Florida woman suffered a heart attack caused by bulimia leaving her brain without oxygen for six minutes. According to medical opinions, she has limited involuntary physical movement. She has remained in a persistent vegetative state ever since. Terri did not have a living will or medical directive in place at the time of her heart attack.

Michael Schiavo believes that his wife is being made to suffer, and that her present status has robbed her of any remaining dignity. Terri’s parents believe that their daughter has been denied the opportunity to recover, and that with treatment she can enjoy a reasonable quality of life. The legal battle continues today with doctors disagreeing about Terri’s medical status, prospects for recovery and appropriate interventions. In the meantime, Terri remains attached to a feeding tube, spending her life in a medical institution totally incapacitated and unable to participate in the decisions concerning her very life.

Schiavo accepted the doctors diagnosis of persistent vegetative and decided he wanted to remove her from the ventilator (Quill, 2005). The article says he was recalling prior statements that his wife had made, such as “I don’t want to be kept alive on a machine” (Quill, 2005). This is the part where things get tricky. Terri’s parents (the Schindler family) disagreed and did not accept the diagnosis, they believed that Ms. Schiavo’s condition would improve if they continued to provide rehabilitative treatment (citation).

So even though Terri is in a permanent vegetative state, relying on a feeding tube to keep her alive, taking away that feeding tube and letting her starve is killing her which is unethical in almost every ethical theory. Although this patient has no quality of life and is deemed incompetent, since she has been provided a guardian, we should do all things in our power to keep her alive and well as

We as parents have to be careful when our kids get married as they talk about life changes. What we do not know about but when it come on life and die situation for us to say goodbye to our kids. I would love to live on to my kids then bury me in for the how to bury one of my kids it is hard so all parents need to know what is decision their kids make when they get married about darn life in a Emergency such as brain dead, vegetable state do they have healthcare proxy it is important and all of this must be discussed between parent spouse it is important .this case are real I know it is important , did Terri Schiavo have a healthcare proxy are it was the world of the husband are it was the Senate to make money to move on with life with his

In the early months of 2005, Terri Schiavo’s life story, involving her persistent vegetative state (PVS) captured the worldwide spotlight and brought up controversial issues surrounding guardian care of the patient, as well as the overall decisions made by Congress. The government involvement in her case impeded any decisions the family and spouse could properly address for the well being of Schiavo (Montero 166). The governmental court system in Terri Schiavo’s case behaved immorally in regard to the eventual removal of her feeding tube.

This week was I was relaxed and nervous. I was relaxed because I am done with my individual assignment, and nervous because we have presentation. I think group member before us as set the presentation standards high, and we as a group need to at least try to match the level. Other than reading and working on the presentation I had two case studies, 9 discussions board posting to finish. I am poor public speaker, I get extra nervous to talk in front of the class. Hope I can manage to talk for two minutes, and explained what I read and research on my topic.

This is illustrated in Mrs. Smith’s case. Mrs. Smith is an 85 year old who has suffered from a large stroke that extends to both of her brain hemispheres which has left her unconscious and unable to make medical decisions for herself. She only has some brain stem reflexes and requires a ventilator for life support. Mrs. Smith did not set up an advanced directive, which is defined by Miracle (2011) “mechanism by which individuals make known how they want medical treatment decisions made when they can no longer make them for themselves” (p.229). Without an advanced directive, medical decisions will fall to Mrs. Smith’s children, Sara and Frank. Each of which have different views regarding their mother’s plan of care. The decision that needs to be made is whether to prolong Mrs. Smith’s life with continued medical intervention, as Sara would like to do, or stop all treatments and care, as Frank

They were the subjects of public disputes with family members, court systems, medical professionals, the media, and society at large. Terri Schiavo, Nancy Cruzan and Karen Ann Quinlan; their names are synonymous with permanent vegetative state (PVS). The amazing technological advancements in modern medicine has been credited with keeping persons alive who in times past would have died, therefore this is remarkable for countless families. In the cases of the Quinlan’s, the Cruzan’s and many like them, families members find it unbearable to witness loved ones who linger indefinitely in PVS with little or no chance for recovery. There are many like Terri Schiavo’s parents, who value the lives of their love ones no matter how limited their

The first step in the ethical decision making process is to identify the conflict and the related ethical and legal issues (Reamer, 2005). In this case, the issue is a man lacking capacity to consent to life saving surgery, the surrogate’s position to forego the surgery and the physician’s belief that the surgery should be performed. The Family Health Care Decision Act does provide for surrogate decision making in cases of incapacity but is less clear in regard to withholding life saving measures and what constitutes significant pain and suffering or inhumane treatment (Swidler, 2010). The NASW Code of Ethics also addresses surrogate decision making ability when a client lacks capacity to consent (NASW Press, 2015). The Code addresses the commitment to clients, the social worker’s role in safeguarding the rights of those who lack capacity, the social worker’s responsibility to work collaboratively with the interdisciplinary team and the social worker’s responsibility to ensure that the surrogate decision maker is acting in a way that reflects the wishes of the patient (NASW Press,

The concept of who had the best interest for Terri’s future became a nasty situation in that it rested on conflicting hearsay arguments of separate personal conversations that were between both parties. Michael saw that there was no chance of recovery for the initial five years, along with being repeatedly told by multiple doctors who had worked intensely to regain her consciousness. One can even infer that her grim prognosis during this five year period, even motivated him to become a certified respiratory therapist. This ultimately granted him enough proof to the courts that his intentions were indeed authentic. However, the interaction between Michael and Terri’s parents tried to be mediated by qualified physicians on numerous occasions

The conflict arises when the patient’s advanced directive or family insist on continuing life support, despite the patient’s brain dead status. At which point you must consider if it is right provide a dead body with limited resources a living person could have used. I chose this theory because it seems the best policy in most situations. However, in the real world I would use a combination of the principles so I can look at the situations from all points of view. Life is not cut and dry and nether is every situation or circumstance.

In my opinion, I believe that the family members should all agree with what is right for the dying person but sometimes that doesn’t play out right. So if the person is married, their partner should make the decision, but if the person isn’t married the parents should. So in the case of Terri’s, both of the sides were on different pages of ending Terri life. The medical doctors should have asked what the husband thought was the right thing to do and the decision was to end Terri life. It mentions in the case that patients that are in a PVS are not likely to recover. So why have someone’s body alive, but the person is no longer with us, we are the only ones that are suffering. I don’t believe the legislature should vouch for someone’s life the reason is because they didn’t know the person as well like close family members.

However, there are documented reports of her reacting to family members. Her husband wanted to withdraw her feeding tube so she could die “peacefully” but her parents wanted to keep providing medical treatment and care to their daughter. While Terri was considered to have brain damage and was in a wheelchair, she was able to breathe on her own and maintain the functions needed for survival (ie blood pressure, heartbeat, kidney function, etc.). To her parents, she was their daughter and deserved the necessary physical, occupational and speech therapy to help her reach maximum recovery. Her husband thought otherwise. He considered her a vegetable. He wanted the feeding tube removed so she could die. The saddest part about Terri Schiavo’s case is her parents were willing to take care of her but because her husband was next of kin, and Terri didn’t have a living will, all decisions were made by her husband. His decision was to remove the tube and sadly, Terri was starved to death. She died two weeks after her feeding tube was removed. Should she have died? Absolutely not, especially with her parents and siblings more than willing to assume all responsibility of her care.