One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Ethics

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest is an entertaining film that depicts the life of criminal nearing the end of his sentence at a labor camp. Randall Patrick McMurphy (Mac), begins acting insane as he thinks that a transfer to a psychiatric institution will be his easy way out of hard work. Little to his surprise, nurse Ratchet is the head nurse who will do anything to breath the life out of the patients in the institution. Soon Mac and Ratchet are at war, and Mac begins to fight for himself and the other patients. Over time, Mac develops relationships with many other patients, specifically Chief a tall Native American who is presumed to be deaf and mute. Chief is not deaf or mute, but does not speak to keep the attention off of him. Mac is upset to find out that he will not be leaving the institution until deemed fit for discharge. The movie is a whirlwind of comical stand offs, degrading group therapy sessions, and big mistakes. …show more content…
Nurse Ratchet and the many other clinicians should be evaluated using their own fitness for duty evaluation and personality testing. It is clear that these people are not attempting to make a difference or bettering the patients of the ward. Mac’s time in the psych ward would have better been spent understanding his past criminal history and why he has made some of the choices he has. It seems that there is a breach in ethics at every turn of the movie. The team charged with caring for those in the institution are not working to better the patients, but to degrade and further harm them with barbaric therapies that are not needed. In the end Mac’s life is the ultimate cost of his decision to pretend to be “crazy”. When Chief notices that Mac had a lobotomy, he acted in what he felt was the best interest of Mac, and suffocated him to allow him to at least die with