When Living Is A Fate Worse Than Death Summary

Death is a difficult topic for most people to discuss. Even those in the medical profession, such as doctors and surgeons, have a tough time discussing the prospect of death with patients. In Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, Gawande delves into what really matters as life comes to an end, new ways of helping the elderly enjoy their waning days, and the role of doctors and medicine in curing diseases and dealing with patients. Sheri Fink, a reporter for the New York Times, reviewed this book on November 6, 2014 for The New York Times Sunday Book Review in “Atul Gawande’s ‘Being Mortal’”. She thinks Being Mortal is a “valuable contribution to the growing literature on aging, death, and dying”, and does a good job of introducing the topic of

A Good Death by Carolyn Adams talks about being present while assessing a patient. Carolyn Adams sits on the side of the patient’s bed to talk to them so they feel like she is not in a rush to get out of the room. Sometimes peoples standing posture shows that they are in a hurry to get somewhere else. In this story is it expressed that palliative care nurses are not miracle workers, they are there to allow the palliative patients to have a “good death” (SOURCE, PICARD, 2000). The purpose of this assignment is to effectively reflect on a nurse’s story, identify the themes that are present and to integrate Carper’s (1978) ways of knowing into the story.

Physician-assisted death can be seen as a desirable way to end one’s painful agony, where the person knows that they are inevitably going to die, but they are currently suffering, awaiting eminent death. Studies show that among the patients that have ended their life through this process, the majority of them have been diagnosed with AIDS or other incurable diseases, causing them to lose all hope in life. This portrays the person’s resignation and their end to strive to continue living under such unbearable circumstances.

A person who is dying of a terminal illness is faced with only one certainty; they will die from this disease. A doctor can say roughly the amount of time that a patient has, but they exact date and level of pain is hard to determine. Many may look to a physician for the answer on if they should/shouldn’t choose PAS, however, the only role a physician plays is giving the medical diagnosis and working with the patient to get what the patient feels is the best option. Therefore, the decision the patient makes doesn’t make the physician a moral guide, but rather a person doing their job. The last big decision people who are terminally ill have is when/how to die and it has to be their own and it has to be respected.

Trudy Harris has written another outstanding read to the follow-up of her first book Glimpses of Heaven. If you cherish the first book as much as I do you will not feel any different about the second. This book has a interesting new twist she reached out to other medical professionals voicing their stories along with her own. The prose is exemplary without a single flaw. Trudy writes about death in such a special way that it pulls at your emotions yet not negatively. Yes, it is sad that people are dying but, she portrays death in such a beautiful manner it is enlightening to the reader.

Many nurses are regularly confronted with the hopelessness and exhaustion of patients and their families making it difficult for them to find balance between the preservation of life and the enablement of a dignified death. Nurses must acknowledge their own feelings of sorrow, fear, dismay and helplessness and recognize the impact of these emotions in clinical decision making. These distressing pressures may cause a nurse to contemplate intentionally assist in ending a patient's life as a humane and compassionate answer, however; the conventional goals and standards of the nursing profession mitigate against it.

First, the article was very interesting. It made me think a lot while reading it. I was crying when I read about the family story. It reminds me when my dad was diagnosed with cervical cancer disease. I found Quote 2 was very interesting because when I read through it, the question come up in my mind that yes how can the nurses or doctors know a patient is dying when medicine or medical technology take a big part to prolong a person life? Without technology and medicine help, the patient may or may not stay long. It is also hard to say a person is dying or living when technology and medicine help to hold the disease down for a long time or prolong patient lives. We know that the goal of medicine is to extend a person life and fight disease even he/she in terminal stage.

This paper will illustrate that death is unimaginable and fearful concept in most people’s minds until their suffering from a terminal illness or from an experience where a life was lost and it will demonstrate how some doctors are trained to deal with death and dying. In this response I will be analyzing two articles On the Fear of Death and dying by Elisabeth Keubler-Ross and At the End, Offering Not a Cure but Comfort by Anemona

In the essay, “When Living is a Fate Worse Than Death,” by Christine Mitchell, is about a suffering baby named Charlotte. She was born with only enough brain cells to breathe and fight off pain. Charlotte’s parents were from Haiti and they wanted Charlotte to survive. They believed if she received medical treatment in the United States she would live. Charlotte could not live without machines keeping her alive and holes drilled into her bones. In my opinion, Charlotte’s death was inevitable.

Keeping a person alive by excessive treatment might devastate the family and make the dying suffer tremendously in the end. “Advance medical technology that seems to one person a godsend, extending life, may seem to another a curse that only prolong dying. Dignity can be devalued amid technology focused solely on the biological organism.”

Death is a highly emotional topic that affects all of us. We are all going to get old and frail, become sick, or contract a fatal illness. Some of us will end up depending on someone else to care for us, and even financially support us before our eventful death. How we die concerns absolutely everyone. Death is as much a part of life as birth. We need to respect the quality of human life and to alleviate pain whenever possible. Withholding additional pain medication because fear of “addiction” in a terminally ill patient is ridiculous. Prolonging a terminal patient’s agony with life supporting ventilator equipment, electrical shock, and drugs is cruel and unforgivable.

What would you do if you were caring for a child whose condition would eventually kill them, but the parents wanted you to try every treatment? In the article “When Living Is a Fate Worse Than Death” by Christine Mitchell, the main point consists of this very question. The choice that hospital staff sometimes must make between keeping a child alive knowing that their condition will eventually take over or trying every procedure in an attempt to keep them alive. I believe that Mitchell does a great job in stating her claim favoring the side that a child with an illness that would, in time, take their life should be allowed to die peacefully rather than enduring painful procedures and bouncing between home and hospitals.

The field of nursing has always been one with constant evolution. From the early days on the battlefields, farms and homes to current events that occur in the hospital, nursing has always had challenges to face. Death and dying, in particular, has evolved from private settings to publicly passing away in a hospital or nursing home. This paper will focus on defining and discussing the historical aspects of death and dying, presenting the current functions and roles of the hospice nurse, why it is important for nurses to know this valuable information and how this knowledge shapes the future of nursing.

The concept of death and dying has been perceived differently among medical practitioners at different levels. Nurses are among the most affected by the outcomes of their experiences regarding death and illness of their patients. In particular, nurses working in intensive care units have had traumatic experiences due to repeated exposure to death and dying patients1. Therefore, it is significant to scrutinize scientific studies to find out how such practitioners are affected by death and dying patient’s exposure. This paper reviews the article “Experiences of Critical Care Nurses of Death and Dying in an Intensive Care Unit: A Phenomenological Study,” and gives a summary of the significant issues around death and dying from the findings that

Time of death: 5:00pm. I looked up and saw a mother, a father, a brother, and a boyfriend with tears and anguish stricken in their eyes as I finished terminally extubating Sam. I was Sam’s, respiratory therapist (RT) in the intensive care unit for two months as she anxiously waited for a new set of lungs. Regrettably, Sam was suffering from cystic fibrosis and a grave pulmonary infection, yet still fought every day for her life. As health care practitioners, we spend every second trying to do everything we can for our patients from A to Z, but the thought of ending life is one that does not cross our minds very often. When Sam explained that she did not want to live anymore, it was my job to remove the tracheostomy tube keeping her alive. About 20 minutes later, she passed away surrounded by those who loved her and the RT who at that moment learned one of life’s greatest lessons: Compassion comes forward with the realization that our purpose is to liberate patient 's from their suffering.