Doctor Franciscus Arguments

One of the oldest debates in the medical field is that of medical ethics. Proponents on one side of the debate argue that doctors should not develop connections to their patients. The case that is made here is that if doctors do not connect emotionally with their patients then they will be able to focus solely on their work and not cloud their judgment with emotions. This type of view also protects the doctors from getting emotionally hurt if their patient dies on them. On the other side, people argue that it is good for medical professionals to form emotional connections and deeply care for their patients. This argument claims that doctors will treat their patients better and care for them more if they can connect with them. In essence, this …show more content…
For Franciscus the patient’s treatment is first and foremost, their emotions and people’s view of him come second. The narrator describes Franciscus relationship with his patients as, “It was less kindness that he showed them than a reassurance that he would never give up, that he would bend every effort. If anyone could, he would solve the problems of their flesh.” This description shows that Franciscus is not the kindest doctor to have, but he will never give up on his patients. Franciscus would exhaust every form of treatment to try and help his patients. However, Franciscus takes this to the extreme as it is explained that he has no close friends on staff, and is “known to keep his own counsel…which gives him the appearance of being haughty.” He even goes as far as to dislike the touch of the patients; at one point when he was teaching the medical students he was grabbed by a patient and he ripped away from him. Obviously these last two traits are extreme, but otherwise, Franciscus is the model doctor for people who argue against emotional connections with …show more content…
When he first met her, he acted as he normally would, purely professional, but after he ripped the rag away from her mouth something changed; he promised her that he would fix her disfigurement. As the narrator states, “Had she brought her mouth to him willingly, without shame, she would have been for him neither more nor less than any other patient. When Imelda goes in for the surgery she ends up dying do to an allergy to the anesthesia and this deeply affects Franciscus. While Imelda was dying on the table the narrator remarks that Franciscus’ eyes were the eyes of a horse in battle. This means that he was terrified at what was happening before him. Afterwards Franciscus decides that he must be the one to tell the mother what happened in his broken Spanish, instead of the narrator who spoke Spanish. This shows that Franciscus takes what has happened personal and feels that it is his obligation to tell the mother. The narrator says at this moment, “He raised his thumb and forefinger to press something back into his eyes…At this moment he was like someone cast, still alive, as an effigy for his own tomb.” It is clear here that Franciscus is taking the loss of Imelda very personally as it could be interpreted that he was crying here. This is the sort of thing that people argued would happen to doctors if they became attached to their