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Patient autonomy should stop when the patient is no longer mentally capable of
making informed decisions. If someone has severe enough mental impairment that will
cause them to damage themselves they should not be able to be the primary decision
maker. This responsibility should be passed on to a person who has the patient’s best
interest in mind like a family member. They should still listen to patient and pay attention
to their needs, but at that point it should be up to the physician and the other person to
make these decisions. It is unfair for the patient to suffer because they didn’t know how
to make the best decision
Medical research should strive to make advancements in the healthcare field that
will benefit all people and not be for an elite class. It should not be done on humans
unless that person has a knowledge of all possible outcomes and still feels like they
would like to take the risk. It should be constantly advancing and not only focus on
diseases that are the most publicized but also the ones that affect smaller groups in a
harsh way. I think it is wonderful that so much is being done for breast cancer especially
since a large percent of women will be affected at some point in their lives, but there are
many other forms of cancer that are still awful but do not have as much funding or focus
on finding treatments.
Genetic testing for the future should not be a way we eliminate people who are
different or less desired. It should be a way of learning more about genetic factors
associated with disease to target these illnesses in an earlier stage, or even before
symptoms start, to have a better chance at curing. I learned the other day about a
specific genetic mutation that will give women affected both ovarian and breast cancer.
Since we know this, women can have surgery to remove the areas that will be affected
and won’t have to deal with this potentially life threatening sickness at all and it would
be remarkable if we could find more traits like this.
Egg and sperm donation should be looked at as a way to give someone that
would otherwise be childless an opportunity to have a child. I think it is great that there
are people willing to donate their own egg or sperm to help other people in this way and
it should not be looked at in a negative way. I have heard some people ask the donors if
it is weird to have potential children out in the world that they will never know about
which I think is a wrong way to view it. Yes, they are genetically their offspring, but they
are the child of the person who raised them.
An option for people who are at the end of their life with the only care option left
being palliative. I work in the OR and had a patient come back several times for pain
management treatments and it made me really sad to see. He would be writhing in pain
barely able to talk and his body was so frail that I didn’t know how he even had the
strength to move. At that point their quality of life is so low and they are only prolonging
their imminent death.
Medical research for women should be just as important as medical research for
men. There are undeniable differences in the genetic makeup of men and women which
will make different treatments react different to each of the genders. Because of this,
researchers should have a good understanding of how it will affect all potential patients
before releasing treatments to the public. We do not need to say that one gender is
superior or inferior but merely acknowledge that they are different but equally important.