Counterproductivitiy: Society's Outlook On Modern Medicine

With a respectable argument against the idea of pharmaceutical advances eventually leading to immortality, Lexchin uses multiple forms of rhetoric, mostly logos, to sway the readers. He sets our deep fantasies of someday being able to live forever against our rational minds and backs up his case with sound logic and viable examples that leave us no doubts about human limitation.

According to Murray, some patients fight death, they use drugs, chemotherpy, radiation, surgical, or CPR. They believe that they can overcome their illness. Doctors recommend that people who can not be saved with treatment should just live their life with their family, enjoying the rest of their days. Therefore, the doctors have to know what is best for their patients. They should have treatment. When the patients spend a lot of money, this is not the way to overcome illness. For example, there was a women trying to overcome her

The readings this week solidified many long standing questions that I’ve had about the healthcare system, and further proved to me just how flawed it is. The introduction and chapter four from The Social Transformation of American Medicine by Paul Starr established a framework and common language surrounding how the current healthcare system came to be. The introduction specifically heavily focused on the concept of authority and how cultural and societal authority differ and work to strengthen an individual's power. Following this intro, the fourth chapter serves to provide the reader with baseline historical context on how hospitals and physicians have evolved from voluntary institutions into for-profit corporations. Using these chapters as foundational knowledge Gambles chapter gains new nuances to the need for Black hospitals to be established, and the competing forces that were at work to ensure their failure.

The advances of medical researched have progressed and improved significantly over the last century. At this rate, most of the terminal diseases which exist now will be treatable and the use of euthanasia would no longer be required. Euthanasia undermines medical research and more jobs in the area of this industry could be better used in the development of saving people’s lives rather than help ending them.

Kaufman was interested in knowing whether technology has affected the way patients died and the way they ensured a “death with dignity”. She defines “death with dignity” as a death that has been controlled by the patient since the beginning This means, that by the time of their hospital stay, the person has remained in control and is autonomous of all their life options, including their own medical decisions. In many cases, a “death with dignity” is also characterized as a “good death” or a death that has been exempted from both suffering and pain. Consequently, Kauffman was trying to understand why patients, and in some cases physicians and families, push for harsher medical treatment to extend life, even when this endanger their possibility of a “death with dignity”. After reading Reed’s personal memoir, I realize that neither patients or physicians are trying to hurt each other, when they push for harsher treatments.

Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air illuminates a deep epistemological tension between science, through the medical institution and philosophy. Kalanithi shows through the medical field and the progression of death, that philosophy and science are not diametrically opposed, but science has progresses through over medicalization of the body while ignoring the philosophically constructed conception of human nature. Moreover, outside the literary context of When Breath Becomes Air, this dialogue is complicated, by the contemporary belief of the limitless nature of science and human capacity to overcome death. The age of enlightenment philosophy created the separation of humanity from the natural order by the defining factor of rationality and agency, and the development of science. This contributed to the hyper medicalization of the human body, and in many regards, humanity, creating a false utopian vision of the cure, and scientific triumph over death. Thus, two definitions of humanity occur within the progression of science. One that is used to justify unethical experimentation through exclusion, and one that is ignored due to it not fitting into the scientific epistemological view, creating an imperfect view of reality.

Illich (1990) even went as to say that themedical proffesion (including pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment suppliers) have a vested interest in illness so they create illnesses which have to be treated by doctors and drugs etc. this means conditions that used to be seen as natural, such as dying or unhappiness have now undergone a social iatrogenesis (doctor caused illness) whereby people cannot handle their own health anymore. postmodernists dislike this use of medical discourse because one theory has more prestige that it should be considered the truth.

Based on the media clips in this week's module, how has the popular portrayal of American medicine evolved over the course of the 20th century?

In a lot of events, to understand them and make a decision whether the situation is right or wrong, one has to look at each individual. Not everyone thinks a like nor share the same virtues and ethics. According to the research and medicine collide in Haiti there are three points of view ill come across. First will be a Utilitarian guiding me about the ethics in this event, then there’s a Kantian helping, and finally ill speak upon this event to depict if there ethics involved.

Since the turn of the 20th century, modern medicine has made significant advancements in treating the progression of disease. Diseases such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, and several cancers are easily managed in today’s medical community. Yet, just a century ago, those diseases would ensure a swift and unfortunate demise. Since the mid 1960s, the emergence of technological advancements and treatment modalities has increased the U.S. population’s life expectancy. Presently, life can be extended for years due to the development and use of ventilators, gastro-intestinal tubes, and hemodialysis in terminally ill patients. With of the spark medical innovation, an unanticipated dilemma has developed within the holds of modern medicine and the U.S.

So essentially the increase in production and specifically the power of mans product of his labour suppresses him further into an alienated state at the cost of his humanity. His fulfillment at work is minimal; on the contrary he is miserable and survives only as a means to produce capital. The worker remains detached from the product of his labour and produces only wages in an attempt to prosper in the same way as the capitalist seeks to prosper – only the prosperity of the capitalist ascends at a higher level through the exploitation of the worker . (ibid).

Earth is a quintessential mecca for approximately nine million different species of plants, animals, reptiles, bugs, and more. These creatures have modified to adapt to changes in environment in a process called evolution. This natural flow of life is related to natural selection, a term coined by Charles Darwin, and should not be tampered with. Medicine has been able to save countless people from death and should be regarded as both a beneficial and malevolent savior. Due to the leaps and bounds made in medical advancements, more specifically in terms of human medicine, natural selection has been put on the proverbial back-burner of the grill by humans’ moral values for preservation

Pain is a basic mechanism in life that helps the body identify that something is wrong or dangerous. Without pain, the body would be severely damaged without realizing it. Pain can become an inconvenience when it spirals out of control; chronic pain, for example, leaves many miserable and unable to enjoy life to its fullest extent even with traditional medical intervention. Around 80% of people report chronic pain in their lifetime (Holtzman & Beggs, 2013). People afflicted by chronic back pain turn to modern medicine for relief, but even these alternatives are not always 100% effective.

Over the course of many centuries, medical technology has developed to a great extent. Studies show that recent equipment has evolved more in the last ten to twenty years than in the past thousand years. Before human time, people learned to treat themselves by just using natural substances. Now-a-days, our hi-tech systems in the medical field have been created for the most effective tools for a high level of patient care. While they advance the tools, it will then allow for quicker diagnosis, less pain, and fewer costs, which in the end will help save more lives. Some people are accepting that modern technology can buy them more time to live while others might find it quite alarming because they fear

Today, medical interventions have made it possible to save or prolong lives, but should the process of dying be left to nature? (Brogden, 2001). Phrases such as, “killing is always considered murder,” and “while life is present, so is hope” are not enough to contract with the present medical knowledge in the Canadian health care system, which is proficient of giving injured patients a chance to live, which in the past would not have been possible (Brogden, 2001). According to Brogden, a number of economic and ethical questions arise concerning the increasing elderly population. This is the reason why the Canadian society ought to endeavor to come to a decision on what is right and ethical when it comes to facing death.