Hospice care in the United States

envisioned the hospital to be a place of triumph, where physicians, equipped with ingenuity and the powers of modern medicine, battled disease and saved lives; however, the realities of medicine were sobering. For instance, while volunteering at a hospice, I encountered a terminally ill cancer patient: a veteran of my father’s age. He and I had little in common, but we bonded as I helped him around on his wheelchair while we discussed everything from NASCAR to Star Wars. Each week, I inquired…

patient. This part is crucial in palliative care because it can lessen the burden the patient and their family experience from the uncertainty of the situation. Benefits from palliative care are many although they may not all be clear at first. One of the biggest benefits is helping the patient be at ease with the situation they are going through and helping them cope with their reality. Palliative care is essential in today’s modern healthcare culture in the United…

people from a peaceful death, and legislations should require insurance or state assistance to be available for this prescribed medical treatment under a licensed physician the same way they assist with paying for ending life with…

euthanasia or PAS is adopted - legalization or maintaining the current policy of permitting them in individual cases - there will be both benefits and harms” (Emanuel). In this argument, it will be shown that legalizing Euthanasia and PAS within the United States, will help people, by allowing terminally ill patients to realize the end of a good death or, more accurately, a create a higher quality dying experience for them.…

sports requiring extensive control of the body. One day, you are crossing the street and a motorcyclist heading your way doesn’t notice you, leading to a disastrous accident. The next thing you know, you wake up with no control over your arms or legs. A care taker has to do everything for you, since your autonomy is now gone. Months pass and you realize that you cannot live this way anymore. Requesting for physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia has become a last resort. The process is made to…

Tragically losing a loved one can be a damaging experience. Losing my grandfather two years ago took a large toll on me. He was the best grandfather I could have ever asked for. I knew I could always confide in him when I needed to the most. He died from many different diseases revolving around his poor addiction to cigarettes for the majority of his life. He had smoked since his early teens all the way into his sixties. Having this unsavory habit caused him to have heart, lung, and respiratory…

and physical diagnosing skills by interacting with and examining patients and diagnosing illnesses. In their last two years of medical school, students will work under the supervision of certified physicians through hospitals and clinics. They will care for patients and manage various illnesses. Continuing with the expansion of their knowledge, the students will rotate between different fields of education, such as internal medicine and its subspecialties, obstetrics, pediatrics, surgery, etc to…

Another way that legalizing Euthanasia would save lives is by ending life support for those who choose it. Hospitals may save more money in order to fund research to cure incurable illnesses by ending life support. Many patients on life support or in hospice may be put to rest on their own terms. Lastly, nurses and doctors can better focus their attention on patients who are able to be saved. If Euthanasia were an option to those who want it, they could very well be saving someone else’s life by…

In the United States alone, over 5 million senior citizens have Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia. Each year, Alzheimer’s disease claims over half a million senior lives. In 2014, costs related to this disease totaled 214 billion dollars and are expected to continue rising. Alzheimer’s average onset is around age 65, but can be seen in ages as young as 30. Women are almost twice as likely as men to develop this disease (Alzheimer’s Association, 2015). Pain is present in a…

The term euthanasia comes from the Greek terms eu, which means pleasant, and thanatos, which means death (Starr, 2014). There have recently been many debates and attention regarding right to die legislation in the United States. Currently, only six states have laws allowing patients to seek aid when dying, with California governor Jerry Brown signing the bill into law most recently, on October 5th, 2015. In February of 2015, despite dozens of people testifying in the legislative hearings,…