Posted on 08/16/2009 11:08:02 AM PDT by Maelstorm
As a physician I have talked with people about how they want to be treated at the end of their lives. If they knew they were dying, how much would they want done? Would they want to be at home or at a hospital or in a nursing or hospice facility? How much chemotherapy, resuscitation, diagnostic tests, feeding tubes, etc., would they want? At some point would they just want to be kept from suffering?
I also want to be able to have this sort of conversation for myself. I want eventually to be allowed to die with dignity and peace and without a great deal of medical intervention intended just to forestall death for a few more days or weeks. Some of these things need to be decided before the fact; otherwise medical personnel may be required to give us a lot more “treatment” than we might want.
This sort of discussion is what is included in the current House version of health insurance reform, and it is a far cry from the notion of “death panels” that ex-Gov. Palin and others are screeching about in a cynical and manipulative way. I look forward to the day when we the people no longer tolerate extremist politics and instead demand the kind of rational debate a true democracy requires. We can’t afford to let health care reform be derailed by this sort of divisive foolishness.
-Dr. Joe Douglas
200 Maine Street Suite A Lawrence, KS 66044
(785) 843-9192
http://www.bertnash.org/index.html
August 16, 2009
They have to take organs while the heart is still beating, that’s why “brain death” is the criteria for death in these cases, not cardiac arrest.
So then whats the problem?
I knew a shrink.
Specialized in family relationships counseling.
She divorced.
Became a lesbian.
Soured on traditional religion so became a pagan (”Godess”, etc).
Wanted her share of an inheritance sooner rather than later, so used her connections to elder abuse her own Mom to a premature death.
And continues a busy practice to this day.
You want HER in charge of peoples’ ability to speech as they wish (or anything else)?
Not sure about her drug habits if any, but seems people in the medical industry have a higher incidence of drug abuse.
“Quack, quack..”
This would toss, of course — Joan of Arc, Thomas Paine, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln .... Great idea, buddy, total conformity.
I was considering checking yes on organ donations, but I think the euthanasia crowd is very much involved in that. Quick to pull the plug if there is someone who REALLY needs your kidney — fresh — and you are not looking too good. Of course, you could be one of those folks who is in a coma for two months and then comes to life.
The more I investigated it, the more I decided I would NEVER check that box. Sounds ‘nice,’ but it is evil.
Nothing against shrinks but they always make me think of David Steinberg in the sombrero on the old Smothers Brothers Show. LOL!!! I know. That was many, many moons ago.
Dear Dr. Joe,
The kinds of discussions you speak of should be a daily part of your practice with your patients. You should encourage them to have advance care directives, and durable powers of attorney for medical decisions. That’s for you and your patient to discuss and decide. But in no uncertain terms - those discussions should NEVER, EVER happen as a result of a government mandate. The government should NEVER have a say in someone’s care choices. Try standing up for that doctor.
Regards,
Me.
Lawrence Kansas.
Longtime home to zealots.
I know a psychiatrist here in Nashville who is a sorta Christian conservative.
I know another one who was a contemporary of Tim Leary and Dick Alpert and is a certifiable nut.
KANSAS GOVERNMENTAL ETHICS COMMISSION
Marci Francisco
Candidate for SECRETARY OF STATE
Marci Francisco is a Democratic member of the Kansas Senate, representing the 2nd District since 2005. She was Mayor of the Lawrence, Kansas from 1981-1983
08/08
Vickie & Joe Douglas
2804 Oxford Rd Lawrence KS
Joe: counselor mental health field
$200
“Quack, quack..”
He’s a licensed, gooberment approved, Quack. Actually, Uncle Siggie was right about at least the shrink under discussion - “Man is polymorphously perverse”.
Didn’t the Soviets try to use psychiatrists to classify political dissidents as “mentally unstable”?
—Dr. Joe Douglas, fascist
200 Maine Street Suite A
Lawrence, KS 66044
(785) 843-9192
Me too. No more Obamas, Clintons or Pelosis.
Sounds like he thinks Gov. Palin and her kind should be rounded up, put on trains, and conveniently sent to take a “shower” so they could permanently shut the h*ll up.
Another enlightened intellectual... thrilling.
America ‘on revaluation of her medication found she no longer needed half of it.’ but then that would crimp the drug industry’s profits a mite, eh?
This guy is advocating a ‘concerned passivity’ approach regarding the increasingly bold power grabs by the party in power right now. If the public does not roll over and accept what’s handed to them, like a trained dog, then they are ‘irrational’ or ‘divisive’. So what? Typical all-purpose democrat script, the same to be found anywhere from the White House to LGF. Tiresome, and fallacious to boot.
Glad he’s not my family doctor.
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