Healthcare professionals are expected to know how to do incredible things ranging from diagnosing a disease, performing a surgery, or administering drugs in order to help people when there health takes a turn for the worse but when it comes to making life and death decisions; are they qualified? This is a question that continues to present itself and one way to answer this moral dilemma is with the utilitarian theory. Utilitarianism is an ethical theory practiced by John Stuart Mills who was a bright young boy learning Greek at the age of three as well as reading Plato before his tenth birthday. He was a huge advocate for human freedom and voiced that we ought to be able to do anything that does not interfere with others freedom (Marino).
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In these situations they assess the patients and are able to decide how urgent they need medical attention. The more urgent individuals will have priority to medical attention before those with less dire injuries. This can occur with massive amounts of people who all need medical attention but resources are limited. One incident that is widely known about was in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina. The article Whose Lives Should Be Saved? Researchers Ask the Public written by Sheri Fink helps illustrates the decisions healthcare professionals have to make in times of an emergency. In this article she states that healthcare workers had to decide which patients were to be moved first when floodwaters started to rise. It was the sickest that were chosen to go last and most of them died (Fink). She goes on to state many other scenarios where healthcare workers have been forced to make these tough decisions. In another article also written by Fink also addresses the challenge healthcare workers at Memorial Medical Center in Uptown New Orleans faced during Hurricane Katrina stating, “at least 17 patients were injected with morphine or the sedative midazolam, or both after a long awaited rescue effort was at last emptying the hospital” (Fink). Several of these patients were near death when they were injected. Anna Pou the doctor on trial in the article who is accused of administering this life-ending drug is speaking out that medical workers should be immune from prosecution for their good work in devastating
In these situations they assess the patients and are able to decide how urgent they need medical attention. The more urgent individuals will have priority to medical attention before those with less dire injuries. This can occur with massive amounts of people who all need medical attention but resources are limited. One incident that is widely known about was in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina. The article Whose Lives Should Be Saved? Researchers Ask the Public written by Sheri Fink helps illustrates the decisions healthcare professionals have to make in times of an emergency. In this article she states that healthcare workers had to decide which patients were to be moved first when floodwaters started to rise. It was the sickest that were chosen to go last and most of them died (Fink). She goes on to state many other scenarios where healthcare workers have been forced to make these tough decisions. In another article also written by Fink also addresses the challenge healthcare workers at Memorial Medical Center in Uptown New Orleans faced during Hurricane Katrina stating, “at least 17 patients were injected with morphine or the sedative midazolam, or both after a long awaited rescue effort was at last emptying the hospital” (Fink). Several of these patients were near death when they were injected. Anna Pou the doctor on trial in the article who is accused of administering this life-ending drug is speaking out that medical workers should be immune from prosecution for their good work in devastating