Essay Sample on Decision Making in Medicine

Introduction

The patient certainly lacks the ability to make informed and sound decisions about his health. First, the patient's answers are only "yes" or "no" which means he cannot ask questions himself in case he has doubts or does not understand something. Second, his answers are inconsistent making them unreliable and doubtful. The stroke on his left side of the body has inflicted immense damage reducing his capacity to make any sound decision.

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In this case, the patient lacks the ability to make an informed consent, therefore, the patient's wife together with the nurses should do what is best for the client. Since the patient had no advance directive for his treatment, then the two parties must find a solution to the issue. However, his own previous wishes and interests should be prioritized especially the fact that the patient should never or wouldn't want to be sustained by artificial means.

According to the treatment options offered by the nurses, there is none that will completely heal the patient's condition. The nurses are certain that the treatments will be futile and that there may even be further complications that will worsen the condition: like permanent severe disability will be experienced. Thus, the best and reasonable treatment standard is not to use artificial support of life, but just relieve the patient's pain and make him more comfortable in his condition. By doing this, they will be respecting the patient's wishes (considered as verbal directive) and let him leave with his dignity.

Life and Death (Case by Tarris Rosell)

The patient, Katie, views herself as smart and independent. Her personality shows how strong, hardworking and focused she is in her life. She is also optimistic that she can make it in life but not raise a child on her own. Even though she was adopted, she still lived in foster care where she was abused. However, even after she came through on her own, she feared her child would experience the same problem she did and therefore, did not want to give birth and up the baby since she was still a teenager. Even with the many challenges of studying, working long hours and providing for herself, Katie still relies on herself for emotional support.

The classical concept of the soul is evident in this case whereby Katie is not willing to give up her baby after she gives birth because of the fear it will face the challenges she faced. In her foster homes, Katie was abused and problems followed her till today that she has no parents. Therefore, she feels sorry and hurt that the only option for her is to abort the pregnancy; which is a choice she still hates, but probably less.

The concept of "One of Us" can be applied in this situation by describing Katie's situation. She is a high school student, among the top in her class but she is pregnant with her ex-boyfriends baby. She neither is ready nor wants to become a mother or pregnant at that time. Therefore, her option is to undergo an abortion. This means that she joins the list of other high school teenage students who have been pregnant but undergone an abortion; she becomes one of them.

Research and Technology Case

The telos of medicine refer to the good that the doctors/medicine is supposed to do on patients and their health status. In this case, the telos was that the embryologist's intention was pure and good. The embryologist simply wanted to protect the babies from HIV virus infection after birth and in their whole lives. Therefore she injected them with a CRISPR/Cas9 which is an experimental protein required to do exactly that; prevent HIV-1 infection. The process succeeded because the babies' genomes were changed without any additional consequences to their DNA or genes. Thus, they were protected from being infected by the virus all their lives.

The quality of being prudent was not well utilized in this scenario if the embryologist failed to notify the potential parent about the inclusion of the CRISPR/Cas9 protein into their babies' systems. However, if the parent were informed and explained in details what it was and how it works and they agreed, caution and precision were maximized. Additionally, prudence was implemented in this case because of the high caution that was taken during and after the mother's pregnancy period to endure a healthy mother, birth, and children. The doctors used multiple genomes targeted deep sequencing techniques during and after pregnancy.

Basically, doctors, in this case, showed encouragement and value the good of humanity by trying to prevent the infection of HIV in unborn children. This means increasing patient health and prevention of diseases hence fewer deaths caused by HIV/AIDS.