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| "Fantasy" by Sergey Solomko (1867-1928) |
Can you think of other cases in which our society might benefit from abandoning unrealistic fantasies and confronting hard truths?
Saturday, June 20, 2015
Strength
We often hear that “can’t never could” and people who are determined to succeed should never take “no” for an answer. We are encouraged to have big dreams and work hard to achieve them. Yet Gawande uses the case of Sarah and Dr. Marcoux as an example of a patient, a family, and a doctor who make regrettable decisions because they are “unready to confront the reality of her disease” (167).
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I have not had any end of life experience before so I cannot fully comprehend what exactly I will want at the end of my life. I do think it is very important to give somebody a chance to live at the end of their life. It is tough to be the person to make a call saying whether or not someone should have the ability to live. But at the same time I do believe that if someone has let's say less than a 10% chance of survival, the doctor should inform the person of their odds without giving false hope. Not to mention, if the procedure is going to be extremely expensive for only a 10% chance of survival the patient needs to be aware. This information doesn’t have to be bluntly told to the patient but it does need to be brought up. Like Gawande suggested, asking a series of questions in order to casually let the patient know what is really going on. Personally if I knew that the odds were very low for me to actually recover fully, similar to the man who didn’t want to live paralyzed, I would want to know so that I could choose hospice care and spend time with loved ones. Meanwhile, not putting my family in debt by following through with the expensive operation that may have a very low chance of full recovery and may make things worse in the end.
ReplyDeleteOur American society is built on the concept of “The American Dream”. Our world is built on a fantasy, if that gives you any idea how Americans (and to a lesser extent, other cultures), tend to treat the fantasies that are put in front of us every day. We are told that we are the best in the world in so many aspects: education, economy, most murders per capita in certain areas. All these things are presented as truth by the American media, and they’re used to control the way we spend, the way we think, and the way we hate. And often times it’s just plain wrong, but we can usually dispel these lies with a little education, a little research into whatever people are spewing lies about.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if we as a society could all accept that while global warming may not be as serious as some say, the people of earth are definitely polluting the world at a staggering pace. Yes, the earth does go through heating and cooling phases. The earth DOES NOT go through extinction phases. People need to accept that we are affecting our world heavily, and in a bad way.