* new* 28 Sept
http://mobile.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2011/09/27/moved_in_with_daughter/index.html
This is a letter from a grown woman who moved to help her daughter and granddaughter as their husband/father was dying. I was really moved by the advice -- so compassionate, so virtuous.
17 Sept
Dignity Therapy -- helps people feel that they've said what they want to say to those who are important to them, making for a more comfortable death:
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/15/140508715/recording-a-life-in-ones-final-days?sc=tw
16 Sept
Check out this episode of TEDTalks (video) at TED: Joan Halifax: Compassion and the true meaning of empathy - Joan Halifax (2010) - http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TEDTalks_video/~3/XpYzWIsyyP0/joan_halifax.html
"I do not fear death" Salon.com
http://mobile.salon.com/books/2011/09/15/roger_ebert/index.html
Pat Robertson on Alzheimer's & divorce
http://m.yahoo.com/w/news_america/pat-robertson-says-alzheimers-makes-divorce-ok-000952197.html?orig_host_hdr=news.yahoo.com&.intl=us&.lang=en-us
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When it comes to their own health, doctors are as irrational as everyone else. http://nyti.ms/qoAafU
I can completely understand where the author is coming from for as a nursing student we are taught to communicate and empathize with the patients, however, until we are on the other end where we are the ones encountering the potential death date, we will not know the true fear, anger, etc. one may/will feel. With me encountering death occurrences through family members, it is easier for me to connect with patients' loved ones, however, to completely connect with the patient, well that will never happen until I myself have faced death or given a death date. I feel like until one goes through those experiences he/she should not try and tell the patient "It will be ok, you'll be fine, etc. or it'll be painless", because that is technically lying to the patient and I just feel like that is wrong. If I were the patient I would rather the Dr. or nurse tell me "I'm not sure how it will feel, it seems peaceful and relatively painless, but I do not know. I can explain to you what we do to make it as painless as possible", etc.
ReplyDeleteThe author presents a fascinating view because the doctor in him knows that he'll likely survive, yet the patient in him is tired of all the treatments and is ready to give up even though the chances of survival are very high. It is ironic that the doctor is acting as irrational as patients that present the same argument.
ReplyDelete"Even having lived through this illness, I’m not sure that I would be any better prepared if I had to relive it again. No amount of doctoring can prepare you for being a patient."
ReplyDeleteI think this is a very vaild statement. In today's society we know so much about the disease process and how to treat it, but that doesn't mean that the process is going to be easy. I think that doctors may sometimes get carried away with trying to cure, but what patient goes to doctors and gets second opinions because they do not want to get better. It is usually during treatment, just when things are getting really rough that patient's decide that they don't want to do it anymore. If doctors did not give the pt. all the options available would it be going against their hipocratic oath? Is lying to the patient about death being painless or that they will eventually be fine immoral or unethical? Would it be better for them to say.. its not worth your time or suffering because you will die eventually? Who is to decide what is and what is not worth it? There is no way to predict how a disease or treatment will effect someone. Just like the Doc in the article said, he knew the treatment, he knew the statistics, but still he did not want to go on. Doctors tend to be the most rational people, they see the facts and treat based on it, but through such an irrational thing in the mix like cancer and disease and even the most grounded sure people are thrown through loops.
If I was ever to become very sick, with a disease that I was maybe or maybe not fimilar with, I cannot say with 100% certainty that I would follow the treatment that everyone else receives. Everyone is different, everyone has different values, and disease effect everyone differently. Who is to say that what is best for me is what others think is best.
from Katelyn Kees
ReplyDeleteI agree with Athnony and Audrey. The doctor has expierenced death and dying throughout the years by dealing with various patients, but it is a totally different viewpoint when the doctor has to face the possibility of dying. It is easier for him to see why some patients just give up on treatment and just want to let go of any hope. He was lucky to have his wife to support him and overcome the disease. Even though he had a 75% chance of living, he still had many doubts. I think now he understands what it is like to be in the patient's shoes. He experienced the fear of dying and even the painful treatment that he recieved.
The doctor has seen and dealt with death from dealing with patients and when it came to his own death he was not ready for it to happen to him. The doctor has seen what people go through when fighting such difficult disease and he did not want to go through the same. Luckily his wife never gave up on him and he decided to continue treatment and perservere. Now when he is dealing with patients he can see why they might want to give up and face death. Now that he has felt what the patient feels he can work with them.
ReplyDeleteRe: Sex
ReplyDelete1. The Newsweek article I mentioned yesterday in class. http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/07/17/the-growing-demand-for-prostitution.html
2. A followup to the article in on-line Psychology Today: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-intelligence/201107/disgusting-dishonest-damaging-newsweek-calls-you-the-john-next-door
Honestly, I'm relieved to find some reputable counter-commentary, because the article is quite disheartening.
I think you all can read both, perhaps do some more research, and make good decisions about the issues
The article, “When Doctors Become Patients”, illustrates a common truth that many do not discover until they or their loved ones are patients (and at the mercy of an educated treatment team and devastating illness). What the writer experienced is unimaginable, but for many it is a constant reality. Like the author stated in the article, as a nursing student, I am taught to look at a medical issue from the numbers – statistics of survival, lab counts, respirations, blood pressure, heart rate ect. Very rarely am I called to look at an illness from the prospective of the patient: to experience the feelings that often come from giving up control to a group of strange doctors, to understand the courage it takes to wake up and move each day, or even to empathize with the hopelessness that causes someone to “give up” the fight. No amount of education can prepare you to be the patient. “My dreams of dying were not the products of anxious moments of terror. The life force had simply slipped away and made me ready to die” (Manheimer, 2011). These words remind me that life is as much a tangible experience as a subjective one – one’s perspective on their life can completely change their decisions and actions . As a nurse, I must be willing to see my patient’s world from his or her own eyes and be able to understand that numbers cannot explain everything. For some, death is not a failure, but rather an understanding of necessary defeat, a well fought escape from the present.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Katelyn, and I'm sure the doctor knew what he was going into. Knowing the percentage of survival is 75% and the risk of death is 25%, I'm sure it was scary to even consider that he could be part of the 25%. I think that that would run through anyones mind when having surgery. The doctor got the chance to feel how it feels to be on the other side, and actually be the patient. Being the doctor knowing how the treatment goes, is expected. But being the patient is completely different. Going through treatment is exhausting, and he was lucky that he had his wife to push him, as most family members would. No one wants to see anything happen to their loved ones. I thought this was a great article to really show that he knows how the patient feels, and I do believe just like him that this will make him a better doctor.
ReplyDeleteIn response to the Newsweek and Psychology Today articles, I agree with Dr. Cate in my relief of the response by Psychology Today. The Newsweek article was highly disheartening and made it seem like all men are so obsessed with sex that it is all they think about. With that being said, I do think the article was on the right track by saying the American Culture pushes sex heavily. I also liked how they put the focus on the harm sex trafficking does to the prostitute rather than just the sellers/buyers. The intent was obviously sincere, it was just the execution that made it seem like they had an agenda. For example, when it comes to a study group for human nature, 201 people is too small of a sample. If you go looking for the right people, they are going to tell you what you want to hear. Between the two articles, you can get a clear picture that there is an issue, but the severity is not as widespread as the Newsweek article made it seem. I also think the issue is with propaganda and the way culture has become relaxed about these things, not so much the legality of it all.
ReplyDeleteIn response to the Newsweek article, one part that was interesting was the brief biography of the sex worker. It was interesting that it began with the parents trying to obtain money for drugs. It seems that there is a strong correlation between drugs, the fractured family, and prostitution. I would wonder whether fixing one or two of the issues would help decrease human trafficking.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn the article “When Doctors Become Patients,” I think it is interesting that even though the author can see both perspectives, he wanted to choose the one that would make him feel more comfortable. However, his wife wanted him to continue with treatment. I think that ties back into the conversation we had in class about the right care and the patients wanting to be as comfortable as possible. The author knew that he had a very good chance of survival, but was willing to die if that meant being more comfortable. I think the fear of the unknown plays a big role in the choices patients make.
ReplyDeleteI thought the article about the doctor becoming a paitent was very interesting. There is old saying that you don't know how someone feels until you walk a day in their shoes. I kinda feel like this is what happend to him. He unexpectedly got to be a paitent to one of the many things he treats each day. He can now understand how paitents get discouraged and tired and just give up sometimes. I would have to agree with him in that I do think this will make him a better doctor in the end.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nicole in that the Newsweek article was disheartening and seemed as though they had an agenda. I think the qualifications the author used to define a “sex-buyer” were a stretch and a bit extreme. I have always attended Catholic schools, and I would say that I have been pretty sheltered my whole life. I watched the season of Police Women that took place in Cincinnati and it really opened my eyes to the prostitution problem right here in Cincinnati. I work downtown at Kroger General Office on the corner of Court and Vine and it was shocking what was happening right down the street from where I work. I think there are a lot of people that are unaware of how often prostitution takes place. In Police Women the audience is able to see the perspectives of both the Johns and the female prostitutes. The police force has a male cop that goes undercover as a John to catch female prostitutes, and a female cop that goes undercover as a prostitute to catch the Johns. It is hard for these undercover officers to get the Johns and prostitutes to fall into the trap because they are very aware that the police are out there trying to catch them. It was interesting to see some of the female prostitutes break down and cry because they don’t know any other way of life. I think it is good that there are services and programs out there that try and help them, and in the show the police do inform them of those services, but I don’t think most of them even explore those programs. I think this way because on the show there were a lot of people that were repeat offenders. Over the several weeks that the show was filming, there were very many prostitutes and Johns that were arrested, but to think these were just the ones that were caught is amazing. Another thing that I observed from this show is what Anthony mentioned- there is a strong correlation between drugs and prostitution. In the Psychology today article the author says, “Everyone agrees that there are no reliable figures on how bad "sex trafficking" is in the U.S. (which itself is a clue to its rarity), so activists simply make them up.” I think this is a ridiculous thing to say. Just because these statistics are so hard to come by doesn’t mean that there isn’t a problem. It is very hard to put a number on incidences of prostitution and trafficking because it’s not like the men are going to come forward and admit that they have been doing this, and most of the women are either too scared to speak out or feel they don’t have a choice but to continue prostituting. In this article the author makes it clear that he thinks the women prostituting themselves are doing it by choice. I don’t necessarily think this is true because if these women were traumatized as children they aren’t emotionally capable to make the decision not to do it.
ReplyDeleteRegarding human slavery & sex trafficking:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.freedomcenter.org/slavery-today/
from Ozzy
ReplyDeleteI agree with all the people about the doctor now being the patient. It is a totally different story when it's you facing death and not someone else. If it's someone else you can remove yourself from the situation, when it's you, you can't remove yourself from your own body, so you're stuck with it. I feel like I can deal with death pretty well right now but when it's me facing death, I don't think it'll be the same story. I value my life and I can't imagine what it is going to be like to face my own death.
I agree with many of the other students about the doctor now being the patient. I'm sure that before he became a patient he never really understood how the patients feel when they receive the statistics about their diagnosis. He can now be able to relate to his patients because he at one point wanted to be more comfortable than have to go through the treatment/surgery, even though there was a greater percent chance that he would survive and get better. By being able to feel how his patients feel he will be able to understand them on a more personal level. By being able to understand them on a more personal level I believe that it will make him a better Doctor overall.
ReplyDeleteIn Joan Halifax's video she talks about how compassion is an inherent human quality that must be watered. I agree that compassion dwells within all of us but an individual must learn how to tap into its source and and use the emotion. As a nurse having compassion is important when caring for patients, especially ones dealing with life crisis. To me allowing myself to feel compassion towards individuals can be intimidating in a way because it is making me vulnerable to strong emotions that may be uncomfortable. On the upside Joan states that the more we encourage and experience compassion the faster we return to normal after experiencing intense feelings and emotions. As a student nurse, compassion will be added to my list of characteristics that I will develop to enhance my role as a nurse.
ReplyDeleteThe NPR coverage on Dignity Therapy was quite enlightening. I heard of people recording sound bites for family members after they passed – like a mom recording a message for her child on that child’s wedding day or a grandpa writing messages for his future grandchildren. I had, though, never heard of this recording being done as a type of therapy, but it seems to make complete sense. The last task of Erickson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development is Integrity vs. Despair – the idea that a person will look back on their life either with pride or with despair - that they were unable to accomplish all they wanted or they were not able to. It seems that what Dignity Therapy does is forces these dying individuals to look back on their lives, and in turn, helps them to evaluate them. This evaluation, more times than not, will lead these individuals to feel a sense of pride in what they were able to do. This pride may make their impending death seem less scary or meaningless in light of a life well lived.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the advice given to the older woman who moved to live with her daughter while her husband was dying was very compassionate and well thought out advice. I think that while those things were probably not the things that the woman wanted to hear, it was what she needed to hear because it is most likely the true reality of the situation. When a person dies everyone that was close to that person handles the death in their own way and some people push others away. It could be that because the grandmother went to live with them because the man was dying, that that is what they think about when they see her living there now. Maybe they are feeling like her being there reminds them of the death of their father and husband. It is also possible that the mother and daughter feel like they need some relief from this but know that they would not be able to financially make it without the grandmother, so they deal with it the only way they know how, and avoid the situation. Their way of dealing with the death is to avoid situations in which they may have to come head on with facing it. There is no quick fix for this even if the grandmother wants one.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the only way to deal with the mother and daughters grieving is to let them be until they have come to terms with it themselves in the way that they need to. If the grandmother intervenes and tries to cut short their process then she will mostly likely be met with worse consequences than she is experiencing right now. It takes a great deal of patience and sacrifice to be treated in the way that she is by people that you love, but in this case she has to be willing to do so in order for things to improve in the long run. Eventually things will get better for her and I think that the family will open up. It is just a question of how long it will take and there is no definite answer for this because no persons needs and methods for grieving are identical.
While reading the advice column regarding the older woman’s life changing move, I found myself really connecting with her. Her sacrifice for her daughter was enormous, and I was completely taken aback by the idea that her daughter would not welcome her and thank her with open arms for this. While one part of me wanted to correct the daughter and point out to her the proper manners that are expected of a person when another goes out of their way to help, I believe the advice offered in the column was more appropriate. The fact that the daughter and granddaughter are grieving adds an extra component to the problem, and the grandmother must be sensitive to this (despite her own feelings of loneliness and despair). What the advice columnist offered the grandmother was a chance to take the “high road,” pulling wisdom and patience from her experiences in life. While five to six years seems like a long time to take the “high road”, the woman’s time in the family will eventually end. What the advice columnist is asking her to do is to make the household a better place while she is there, advising her to build her spot in the family (a spot the daughter and granddaughter have neglected to build for her) and be a safe place for them. While I have no doubt that if the woman does this she will be better for the experience and the daughter and granddaughter will be too, I would never want to be in her place. If faced with the same decisions she is, I am not sure if I would have the strength to choose so graciously.
ReplyDeleteIn the article where the doctor becomes a patient, many students already commented how his perspective changed. I thought it strange though that he seemed to be less optimistic about his future than he would normally be for his patients. I think his sense of helplessness and the amount of stress he endured caused him to be somewhat irrational about his chances for survival. It's good that his wife was able to snap him out of it.
ReplyDeleteDignity therapy seems like a great idea. It says 70 percent of patients felt an increased sense of meaning and purpose which I think everyone would like to experience especially when approaching death. This therapy, to me, sounds like a spoken journal of one’s life. It allows one’s memories, good and bad, significant and insignificant to be spoken and it serves as a reminder of what one’s life was really all about. I, personally, enjoy keeping a journal so I can look back on it and remember the person I used to be and how much I have changed/ grown since. I think everyone can benefit from reminiscing and they don’t have to wait till they are about to die to do it, however, the article claims death brings out different kinds of stories.
(I do not fear death article) This article was very interesting to me. My favorite part was when he said he did not care much about the laws of society. Crime (in his eyes) was considered to be anything that made someone unhappy. He said that we should be spreading joy and always at least trying to make ourselves and each other a little happier. I agree with this and find it to be a powerful perspective on the meaning of life.
(Moving in with my daughter article) I agree with much of what eal1110 had to say regarding the fact that the grandmother could be seen as a reminder to those grieving. Also people do handle the death of a loved one very differently. Some are more open about their feelings while others would rather be alone to deal with it internally. I think the advice given to the ‘shunned’ could be very helpful. Although it is a tough situation for the grandmother, her patience, kindness, strength and tenderness is exactly what they need to deal with this difficult loss that has made everyday life a struggle for them.