Attending physician

Paul Kalanithi was an English major turned neurosurgeon by the age of 35. However, when he was diagnosed with lung cancer he decided to fulfill his dream of being an author. In his personal memoir “When Breath Becomes Air”, Paul Kalanithi uses personal experiences to explain the effect of death on the living through logos, ethos, and pathos. When the doctors informed Kalanithi that he had stage IV lung cancer he knew his time was running out, so he decided to do the one thing he had left:…

Munchausen by proxy is a sickening form of child abuse where the caregiver, usually the mother, creates symptoms for their child in order to get attention from medical professionals. In Sickened by Julie Gregory it accounts the beginning of her life made up of hospital visits and tests. Only after leaving the care of her mother, Julie Gregory realized what had actually happened to her. She was never really sick her mother was. In this memoir Julie Gregory sets out to tell the truth of…

Clinical Reflection: Prioritization I walked into the emergency department for the clinical observation expecting to see nurses and doctors in an organized chaos, hustling, running, and bumping into each other in their effort to provide life sustaining critical care. Too, I was hoping to see George Clooney performing advance cardiac life support to a patient who was coding, like a scene straight out of the television show. However, that was not what I saw. Instead, I found how calm and…

Ethical Dilemma: Impact of Nurse to Patient Ratios Jamie R. Dupuy University of Louisiana Lafayette  Ethical Dilemma: Impact of Nurse to Patient Ratios On the night shift in an ICU, a nurse finds herself working, the unit assigned to the Code Blue team with one other RN, no ancillary staff support, and six patients. As she is standing between two patient’s rooms, both of which have alarms sounding, a Code Blue is called on the floor. Which patient should she respond to first?…

The article, “The beauty of Bodysnatching”, By Druin Burch is a piece that brings to stage questions of morality, and furthermore the implications of one’s ability to transcend societies limitations. Burch begins the article by introducing different anatomists all practicing in the same period of time, each of whom found their own unique way of coping with the controversy that came along with practicing surgery in the 1800’s. Burch centers his article around one anatomist in particular who had a…

Ryan T. Anderson's article titled “Physician-Assisted Suicide is Always Wrong” begins with Anderson setting the stage of the idea of Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) being introduced with stories of patients diagnosed with terrible diseases. Anderson describes the act of eighteen states considering legalizing PAS a “grave mistake”, and describes a more merciful alternative of doctors giving patients the means to ease their pain as they await their demise. Anderson also quotes Victoria Reggie…

The role of doctors in both the treatment of cancer patients and their families plays a critical role in helping both the patient and their family deal with the stress, burden, and, in some cases, grief during and after treatment. This is evident in Jerome Groopman’s novel, The Measure of Our Days, especially in the story of Matt. Throughout this story, Groopman demonstrates this role, as both he and Dr. Samuels give Billy hope during Matt’s cancer treatments, and aid him in accepting Matt’s…

In 1976, the California Supreme Court ruled in the case of Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California that a patient’s right to confidentiality “ends where the public peril begins.” It was decided that doctor-patient confidentiality could—and should—be broken if the doctor believes a patient will cause serious harm to another person. In his article entitled “A Defense of Unqualified Medical Confidentiality,” Kenneth Kipnis argues that doctor-patient confidentiality should always be kept…

Emergency Departments (ED) all over the country struggle with over-crowding, and consequently long wait times (WT), extensive length of stays (LOS), high rates of patients who leave without being seen (LWBS), and poor patient satisfaction. This paper will explore the impact of overcrowding and the implementation of a fast-track area (FTA) as a solution to minimize the consequences. Emergency Department Crowding ED crowding is a national problem. The number of patients visiting EDs is growing…

profession has not faded away. It has grown stronger and I am more determined then ever that will become a Physician Assistant. My aspiration to enter the medical profession stems from my past and present. My experiences has allowed to learn that there will be times when nothing will seem right, but all I have to do is not lose faith in myself and I can overcome and hurdles. I want to become Physician Assistant and I will not give up until I earn this…