Truthfulness spreads into almost everywhere such as relationships, education, especially medicine because it is a very significant property. Since the beginning, there is an argument in medicine whether doctors should always tell the truth to seriously ill or dying patients or not. There are many various ideas, which may change by situation or people, in this issue. For example, according to Sisella Bok there are three main arguments on this issue, which are that truthfulness is impossible; patients do not want bad news; and truthful information harms them (227) in her article “Lying to the Sick and Dying”. However, while she refers to these arguments she debunks them because she thinks that doctors should not tell lies to their patients. …show more content…
Even if patients cannot understand and make true choices, they have relatives such as family or spouse; hence, doctors can tell the truth to their relatives. Therefore, since doctors can simplify their explanations and patients’ family can make choices for them, doctors should always tell the truth. Lying in medicine seems to be a requirement for doctors because they think that truthful information can hurt patients (Bok 222). According to doctors, while they are telling the truth, patients may have a heart attack or their psychological mechanism might be alleged. Furthermore, death comes more quickly. However, these are so rare and considering these universal is an overgeneralization. In addition, doctors consider their patient as a child and see them like a blind, suffering and passive toy (M.Smith and M.Weil 22); hence, doctors think that they can make choices for their patients without telling the truth to patients. However, this opinion just shows doctors’ paternalistic view (Bok 227). Doctors think that they have the right not to tell the truth to their patients because of their paternalistic view. They point at patients’ misunderstanding of diagnosis because of the esoteric information and patients’ lacking of making best choices due to their illnesses or medicine to support this view. Although these are true, doctors just think for one side and they generalize it. To go into further detail, knowing the truth is a
According to Higgs, one reason why a medical profession might withhold the truth from the patient is that : it may actually do harm through anxiety and distress that's produced after disclosing the truth. At times, truth-telling can lead to major/acute distress or long term disability. There can also be times where distress and fear can lead to a more severe condition of an illness or even causing a patient to deny the treatment. In either way, there is a high chance that the worsening of the illness may occur after a physician disclosing the truth to his/her
Atul Gawande in his article “When the Doctor Makes Mistakes” exposes the mystery, uncertainty and fallibility of medicine in true stories that involve real patients. In a society where attorneys protect hospitals and physicians from zealous trials from clients following medical errors, doctors make mistakes is a testimony that Gawande a representative of other doctors speak openly about failures within the medical fields. In this article, Gawande exposes those errors with an intention of showing the entire society and specifically those within the medicine field that when errors are hidden, learning is squelched and those within the system are provided with an opportunity to continue committing the same errors. What you find when you critically analyse Gawande, “When Doctors Make Mistakes essay is how messy and uncertain medicine turns out to be. Throughout the entire article you experience the havoc within the medicine field as the inexperienced doctor misapplies a central line in a patient.
As I grew older, the need for me to attend these visits were increased due to my proficiency in English. Fortunately, there was now a translator between my parents and the physician, however the authenticity of the translation was skeptical. This is a common issue among the children of non-English speaking families who are unable to successfully relay issues regarding health and finances from the healthcare provider themselves. Due to the complexity of the conditions and the emotional burden that it may contain, I often found myself struggling to relay these messages to my family. There were times where I found myself sugarcoating the diagnoses given by the physician because I did not understand the severity and because I did not want it to impact my family. Once I became a teenager, I realized withholding pertinent information was actually doing more harm than good.
The ethical conflict presented at Paradise Hills Medical Center (PHPM) was about truth telling. The factors that contributed to the ethical conflict were: (i) patients were labeled as “terminal”, so the physicians felt it was going to be counterproductive to patients’ health to know about the medical error. (ii) Physicians were more worried about the consequences that the oncology program would have than the right of the patient to know about the possible implications of radiation overdosing.
Being a doctor requires a lot of hard work and commitment to help others and look for the patient’s well being, but has it always been this way? In “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, she claims in paragraph 4 on page 130 that doctors used to withhold information from patients just so they won’t deny the test being made, and this way obtain their wanted benefit. The author’s claim is supported by the events of the patients from jail, Henrietta’s autopsy, and Henrietta’s cells overall.
Goldman brings up a more controversial situation in which the physician effectively deceives the patient by withholding information pertaining to the patients’ medical condition from the patient himself. He maintains that the right to be told the truth is not innate, and just as in the case of coercion, it must be determined whether the information might be detrimental to the patients’ health directly or whether it might affect
Currently, most people generally accept a doctor’s word as truth and do not question him or her. When it comes to the medical field, patients can often feel overwhelmed by all the confusing medical terms being thrown at them, so they tend to sit back and do as the doctor says. Healthcare professionals sometimes take advantage of this fact and withhold important information from their patients. For instance, a study conducted by Lisa Lezzoni, MD, and her peers states that more than half of physicians lied to their patients about their diagnosis to put a more positive spin on it (Lezzoni, Rao, DesRoches, Vogeli, and Campbell). Healthcare professionals should disclose to the patient any information pertaining to the patient.
An article written by Eric Beam, MD and titled “Welcome to post-truth Medicine” was published on the blog The Long White Coat on January 22, 2017. Eric Beam is an internal medicine resident in New York and The Long White Coat is a blog that focuses on healthcare related issues. This article in particular focuses on post-truth in medicine and was written mainly for other doctors, but it also applies to non-doctors. Dr. Beam seamlessly blends together his use of ethos, pathos, and logos to effectively argue that healthcare has been significantly affected in the post-truth era and it needs to stop.
The psychology of lying is an interesting one because everyone at some point engages in lying. The audiences in of this works are the students and the teaching fraternity. The purpose of this work is to explore compelling reasons that make people lie. Unlike other phenomenon, lying is a relatively old phenomenon that exists throughout the world. This lying habit has been in existence for centuries and people find a way to lie about different things based on a subjective outcome intended by the lying party. Since lying has developed over many years, it has become a functional set of the social system and many people’s lives. The main challenge with lying is that it has a way of catching up with a person. When the
Truth-telling is an important issue within the nurse-patient relationship. Nurses make decisions on a daily basis regarding what information to tell patients. The specific issue in question is whether a nurse should abide by the Code of Ethics for Nurses by revealing the truth to the patient or refrain from telling the truth to the patient because they are respecting the wishes of the patient’s family. Nurses and health care professionals should always tell the truth to their patients unless the patient forgoes their rights to autonomy or cannot think for themselves. By providing the patient with the truth, they allow the patient to come to terms with their conditions and give them the options for further treatment.
I enjoyed reading your DQ 1 post this week, and it is the patients right to choose, but only if they are deemed competent. They also have to respond willingly. It is also important to understand that telling patients the truth no matter what even if the patient is fatally ill is what is required out of a health care professional. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it is considered the standard of care in the United States (U.S.). To preserve and enhance the patient's autonomy the Patient Self-determination Act was enacted. However, some might say that doctors responsibilities and family integrity are being set to the side ( ). But I think otherwise because it is our right to choose what we believe would be
However, a Kantian doctor will say that is immoral and he should tell the truth about the person’s diagnosis. It is the duty of the doctor to be honest to his/her patients. Also, we should respect a patient’s own right to decide for his/her life. We cannot use the patient as mean to achieve other ends which is the greatest happiness of the people involved. One may argue that utilitarian consider long term consequences if doctor lie. Although this is true, we must not forget sometime long term consequence is not uncovered. When long term consequences are not known, we cannot make a moral decision, where as Kant’s approach concern about the duty of doctor instead of outcome of the action.
In the short story the doctor was trying to pry mathilda’s mouth open. May a doctor have more power on whether to lie to his patient’s or to tell them the truth. A physician should respect the patient’s wishes on whether to live or whether to die. “The Use of Force’’ by William Carlos Williams brings up the question if it is ever justifiable for a medical professional to use force.
There are a number of key elements that help to provide a framework that enhances truthful communication. Firstly, there is the need to develop open and honest communication from the very beginning of the patient-health professional relationship. Secondly, the health professional needs to use patient penchant as a “weigh” by asking them what they wish to know, how much they wish to know, and determining what they already know. In other words, it is a responsibility of the health professional to get a ‘feel’ for the situation, including the patients’ perception of the situation (Ashcroft, Dawson & Drape 2007).
The doctor-patient relationship always has been and will remain an essential basis of care, in which high quality information is gathered and procedures are made as well as provided. This relationship is a critical foundation to medical ethics that all doctors should attempt to follow and live by. Patients must also have confidence in their physicians to trust the solutions and work around created to counter act certain illnesses and disease. Doctor-patient relationships can directly be observed in both the stories and poems of Dr. William Carlos Williams as well as in the clinical tales of Dr. Oliver Sacks. Both of these doctors have very similar and diverse relationships with multiple patients