Expect to see more and more articles like this as Obamacare kicks in and we are all encouraged to forgo that bothersome end-of-life care to make the numbers look a little better.
That’s what I think. This is an advertisement for death.
That’s what I wasthinking as I read it.
I seem to recal reading about another dr many years ago who chose to fight her pancreatic cancer. I believ she tried a few unconventional treatments like having the chemo put in her abdominal cavity to bath the pancreas in it I thought she was pretty successful. Not sure how long she survived or if she survived. Fighting versus accepting....individual choice....at least for now.
If you’re at that point and there is no real treatment, other than to keep you doped up and unaware of your condition, what are you accomplishing?
Exactly what I was thinking.
...”Expect to see more and more articles like this as Obamacare kicks in and we are all encouraged to forgo that bothersome end-of-life care to make the numbers look a little better”...
You voice my own thoughts..This is an ad for the government to pick and choose life and death for everyone..Given full reign, (and I know saying this is a “No-no) it ends with a holocaust of some kind. How better to get rid of one’s political enemies than to cover it all up under “healthcare.” Many people choose not to go through heroic measures to sustain their lives if the situation seems hopeless. I do think some empathy should be in place when the very aged are in dire health conditions..In those cases, where only a short time is left, that time should not be spent suffering with tubes, etc., and having the person nearly comatose in the hospital, not able to communicate with family or friends. We have a situation in our family right now of a 92 year old who is in the care of his loving daughter, his wife and Hospice in his daughter’s home..They are with him as he takes his journey to eternity and he is at peace. This decision was made by the family, not a government death panel and that is how it should be. Most families will come to the decision that they do not want their loved one to suffer needlessly, regardless of the age.
http://www.nrlc.org/euthanasia/willtolive/index.html
To prevent unnecessary surgery which will only keep you alive longer, but not help your condition, and to avoid being given too much pain killer with the intent to kill you, see the above link.
Expect to see more and more articles like this as Obamacare kicks in and we are all encouraged to forgo that bothersome end-of-life care to make the numbers look a little better.
You read my mind, didn’t you? My thoughts exactly!
Exactly. As I read this I immediately thought...Obamacare propaganda. Good propaganda has a ring of truth to it but leads you down the path ‘they’ want you to go. That is all this is and yes, we should expect to see more of this.
It should be the patient’s informed decision.
Bingo!
Having recently finished medical school I can assure you this attitude is drummed into Doctors. Over and Over again they hear about how much money is spent in the final years of life. In one sense DUH of course in the last 6 months of life. When you are fighting death it's expensive. The thing that's lost is that the experience gained on an 80YO man is excellent training for making sure a 30YO man makes it through if some bug or bacteria or accident should befall him.
Pancreatic cancer is very rare so the analogy isn't very applicable to the things that most people end up in the hospital for. But young people end up in the hospital and they end up in the ICU. Imagine you stop trying to fix all those 80 year olds. Now that 20 to 30 something gets a doctor that deals with 20% of the ICU patients he/she used to. We are going to start losing a lot more young people because Doctors aren't going to have the training and more importantly aren;t going to innovate and push medical technology any further.
Lastly let's take a simple thing like a code. Codes are run all the time in hospitals people get chest compressions and drugs. The simple fact is that more often than not people don't come out of them. Is that a reason not to do them? You do save some people. They are not fun for the person on the receiving end. But if it buys you 2 more years of life then why not. The doctors with the attitude in the article will say oh you're assaulting the person and interrupting the natural process of dying. But the flip side is you could be home and in hours of agony before you die. It's not always peaceful. It's not like you get to pick your death out of a catalog.
I'll get off my soap box but that attitude really gripes me. Why go into medicine at all if you didn't want to try to help people stave off the inevitable. In reality that's all medicine is trying to do is delay death.