Patient Modesty: Volume 57

Humility and Humiliation: Continuing on with the patient modesty discussion, there is the suggestion that a bit more humility in the medical system might mitigate against patient humiliation.  But to express and demonstrate humility by healthcare providers requires limiting expressions of all-knowing paternalism such as "I've seen it all" and to listen to and act in support on matters of patient gender selection.  But is that possible with professional mindset and practical with regard to current gender maldistribution of healthcare workers? So let's continue on with the discussion. ..Maurice.

NOTICE: AS OF TODAY SEPTEMBER 30, 2013  "PATIENT MODESTY: VOLUME 57" WILL BE CLOSED FOR FURTHER COMMENTS. YOU CAN CONTINUE POSTING COMMENTS ON VOLUME 58.

Graphic: From yourlifetricks via Google Images

"Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder" but to Others DON'T TOUCH!: The Current Gallup Poll Study on Social and Medical Ethics Issues

Ethics is like that. What ethical decision may seem to one beholder as the most obvious right thing to accept or do, to another eye that decision is totally wrong and may pose hazards. And yet opinions about an ethical issue are open to change as demonstrated by the latest (May 2013)Gallup poll of Americans of various ages regarding a number of current "hot topic" ethical issues. The issues covered were: pornography, sex between teenagers, gay or lesbian relations, sex between an unmarried man and woman, having a baby outside of marriage, polygamy, abortion, cloning humans, cloning animals, gambling, doctor-assisted suicide, suicide, married men and women having an affair, divorce, buying and wearing clothes made of animal fur, medical research using stem cells from human embryos, the death penalty, medical testing on animals. And what is interesting is that acceptance/non-acceptance "what is ethical and what is not" polling show general changes not only over the period of the recent years polling has been carried out but also significant changes amongst specific age groups. The  Gallup study is summarized in the following excerpt:

Americans' fundamental views on several issues that define the nation's culture have changed in important ways since the start of the last decade. Gallup trends by age show that (in every case) increasing acceptance of several matters relating to sexual relations, as well as divorce and stem cell research, have moved closer to the views held by the youngest generation of Americans. In some cases, this has resulted in transformative change, with majority acceptance emerging in the past decade, and in others, it has resulted in expanded majority acceptance. Pornography and teenage sex now stand out as issues that could emerge as more broadly accepted in the future. However, this will largely hinge on whether today's young adults maintain these views into middle age -- i.e., teen parenting -- or whether they soften. Currently, overall acceptance of both is low, but this masks large generational gulfs with nearly half of young adults supportive versus roughly one in five adults aged 55 and older.

Go to the above link, read the full study data and then return and present YOUR opinion on one or more of these ethics topics. Even if you write anonymously, you might indicate your age for comparison with the Gallup statistics. This thread, if we get some responses, should be interesting. ..Maurice.

Graphic: Poison Oak photographed by me Towsley Canyon, Santa Clarita, California.

"WITHOUT THE BREAD OF LIFE, YOU ARE TOAST": As a Non-Biblical Expression, This Means What?

"Without the bread of life you are toast" is another common expression but beyond the religious biblical definition of "the bread of life" regarding Christ and Christ's words and its display on church signs is there another definition that focuses on what makes a person's life specifically something worth keeping and continuing?  For example, what "bread" is so essential to be alive or want to remain alive that in its absence suicide or termination of life support might be considered? Would it be total lack of awareness of the external world by the inability to see, with the inability to hear and inability to experience touch and no way to communicate to that world? A clinical example would be that of a  patient with a diagnosis of coma. Another example would be a patient in a persistent vegetative state where there is permanent destruction of brain tissue and no direct evidence of awareness of the external world or communication, though current  functional MRI studies may eventually render this assumption of absence of awareness false.  Would the ability, the need and the value simply to communicate, by itself, be that very "bread"? If so, would that require being able to communicate to others or only the ability to "think", communicating only to oneself. An example of inability to communicate to others would be end-stage amyotrophic lateral sclerosis  or also the "locked-in" syndrome with total paralysis including inability to move, talk or in some patients even inability to communicate by eye movements because of rare paralysis of the eye muscles.  A non-clinical inability to communicate to others but only spending one's life just "thinking" to oneself would be prisoners locked in solitary confinement.  But then even if just "thinking" were considered the "bread of life"  what if the thinking itself was demented thinking would that still fit the description?

On the other hand, can one identify "bread of life" as specific experiences and states in the individual's outside world such as a persistent friendship or love or marriage and creating a family or experiencing an education or an enjoyable occupation with a salary that readily provides daily bread on the table.

And if one has no "bread of life" and becomes "toast" should that toast always be thrown away in the garbage or could instead, in most situations, that toast be made into a sandwich to feed the hungry?

How would you define a non-biblical expression "bread of life"?  ..Maurice

Graphic: From Google Images modified by me with Picasa 3.