To be ethically neutral is to have no duty to act. It is the idea that one has no bias and views no one side as having a right to an action. In this way, it can be said that an engineer is ethically neutral to a company who has not contracted him to complete a bridge design; or a nurse is ethically neutral to a patient to whom she is not assigned. The same cannot be said for a doctor who enters into a contract to care for a patient. Morals and ethics are intrinsic to the medical profession. Caring is intrinsic to the profession; It is not possible to provide care for someone without actually caring for them.
Bioethics
Bioethics is defined as the ethics of biological and medical research. The foundation of bioethics is based on autonomy: A …show more content…
negative duties
Kass lists six virtues he believes a person must have in order to practice medicine; moderation/self-restraint, gravity, patience, sympathy, discretion, and prudence. Though I could have written a paper on how lacking I believe this list to be, I will limit my articulations to just one of these: Sympathy. Sympathy is defined as feelings of pity or sorrow for another person’s misfortunes. It is a feeling that occurs when a patient’s predicament reminds you of a similar event from your own life. I believe there is no place in professional medicine for sympathy. When you show sympathy, you show a selfish need to make the situation about you. While a doctor is autonomous in his relationship with a patient, the relationship is not based on his needs or feelings. Compassion should be listed in the place of sympathy, for compassion shows the patient that you understand what they are going through and that you want to help, but also that your focus is still on …show more content…
terminating a life Kass argues for the physician halting treatment of a disease or condition, but against the action of terminating the life of that same patient. I argue that the two scenarios are so similar that one cannot be distinguished, morally, from the other. By halting treatment, the physician is actively allowing death to find the patient earlier, just as would happen if he actively terminated the life of the patient. The latter would happen, presumably much faster, but the end result is the same: Because of the actions of the physician, the patient will die. Kass uses the example of patients with cancer with bone metastases, causing hard to control pain as the case that is most widely put forth by supporters of medically assisted death. As an argument against it, he states that in most instances pain can be controlled with the right dosage of the right narcotic at the right times. While this may be true, what about those terminal patients who are not in pain? The ALS patient, for example, typically does not suffer from great amounts of pain, especially in the early stages of the disease. The life expectancy of someone who has been diagnosed with ALS is three to five years after diagnosis. The mortality rate of an ALS diagnosis is 100%. To be diagnosed equates to a death sentence, most likely within the next five years. Why should the terminal ALS patient who has no hope for a cure and is well informed of what course the disease will take
Bioethics
Bioethics is defined as the ethics of biological and medical research. The foundation of bioethics is based on autonomy: A …show more content…
negative duties
Kass lists six virtues he believes a person must have in order to practice medicine; moderation/self-restraint, gravity, patience, sympathy, discretion, and prudence. Though I could have written a paper on how lacking I believe this list to be, I will limit my articulations to just one of these: Sympathy. Sympathy is defined as feelings of pity or sorrow for another person’s misfortunes. It is a feeling that occurs when a patient’s predicament reminds you of a similar event from your own life. I believe there is no place in professional medicine for sympathy. When you show sympathy, you show a selfish need to make the situation about you. While a doctor is autonomous in his relationship with a patient, the relationship is not based on his needs or feelings. Compassion should be listed in the place of sympathy, for compassion shows the patient that you understand what they are going through and that you want to help, but also that your focus is still on …show more content…
terminating a life Kass argues for the physician halting treatment of a disease or condition, but against the action of terminating the life of that same patient. I argue that the two scenarios are so similar that one cannot be distinguished, morally, from the other. By halting treatment, the physician is actively allowing death to find the patient earlier, just as would happen if he actively terminated the life of the patient. The latter would happen, presumably much faster, but the end result is the same: Because of the actions of the physician, the patient will die. Kass uses the example of patients with cancer with bone metastases, causing hard to control pain as the case that is most widely put forth by supporters of medically assisted death. As an argument against it, he states that in most instances pain can be controlled with the right dosage of the right narcotic at the right times. While this may be true, what about those terminal patients who are not in pain? The ALS patient, for example, typically does not suffer from great amounts of pain, especially in the early stages of the disease. The life expectancy of someone who has been diagnosed with ALS is three to five years after diagnosis. The mortality rate of an ALS diagnosis is 100%. To be diagnosed equates to a death sentence, most likely within the next five years. Why should the terminal ALS patient who has no hope for a cure and is well informed of what course the disease will take