Suffering Disorders: A Case Study Of Ethical Dilemmas

A 69-year-old woman was fairly active, until she was diagnosed with diabetes. She was then admitted to the hospital for reoccurring fainting that the doctors finally pin pointed to be intermittent transient heart block() and she agreed to having a pacemaker put in. Months later, her kidney function started to diminish, however, dialysis was not needed at that time because the kidney function began to improve. She said she would have refused the dialysis treatment anyways. She also has profound anemia and she has refused treatment for that as well. The doctor does a colonoscopy on the patient to see if she had cancer. The test showed that she at some time had a malignant spot, but it had cured itself. The patient is now asking for her pacemaker to be turned off so she can die. Her reasons for wanting to die include that she misses her husband of 45 years that has already passed, she can’t stand to live in her home with the memories, but refuses to move, and she wants to …show more content…
Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath that starts off by saying, “First do no harm.” This is really important in this case. The doctors clearly must listen to the patients wish, but they must also take into account their role as a medical professional that they must not induce any sort of pain or suffering. Doctors are to either help the patient or make decisions that would cause no harm to that patient.
If the patient were dying from the medical diagnoses she has now and that it was very evident, then I think it is ethically okay to turn off her pacemaker. However, since the medical diagnoses aren’t outright killing her, then I don’t think that the doctors should turn off the pacemaker. Yes she is suffering, but turning off her pacemaker would have caused an even greater suffering of the patient. This would violate the doctor’s one right in providing healthcare to the people. They would be allowing more suffering to occur than what was already