Freja, I'm afraid it'll be hard for me to find the magazine. And I admit, I don't know if it's the same for everyone. And I don't know how to prove it's the same for everyone or not. But on AVERAGE, it does increase the chances of surviving a lot. That might be a good idea indeed
Well for sure its not the same for everyone... But if you take two groups of people and you lie to one of the groups and tell the others the truth, the group which has been lied to does significantly do better... So statistically it would improve everyones chances (for every bigger group of people you'll get the same results) but for the single individuum you can't tell... They mght die or they might not but stil statistically you would increase his chances of surviving by lieing to him.
yeah, I know there might be a point. But I mean, it's a persons life.. Not something you can toy with, so I think every aspect of this problem should be looked at before making a choice of lying. I actually think it's illegal, but I'm not sure :} I think I might wanted to be lied to if it was me, but then again.. You should have the right to know if you're dying. It's a pretty complex question to raise xD
Everyone lies in their life. But i think people like doctors shouldn't lie if it comes to your health. You have the right to know if how well you are. If they lie, they give false hope for the person in question and to the relatives. I think when it's your time to go then no doctor could help you. Have faith that everything might work out good. And if it isn't than it's not up to you. You have tried your best to get healthy again.
Still, if you have to go, you have to go. That's science. I don't see how you can interpert that as something religious.
on a religious way or on a science way Either have the same outcome. When you have to go you go xD there isn't such thing as measuring how much time you have because it's pretty much random.
When you have to go you have to go is a sentence that is logical in itself... I think the right term would be a synthetic sentence a priori. So really this has nothing to do with science or religion.
yeah, but it's just not really ON topic - when we're talking about whether you should lie to a patient or not.
It should be option B, if it gives him a larger chance of surviving. Then again, there should be a point when if things are really going wrong, then you tell them. Meh, complicated.
Under no circumstances should a patient in the hospital be lied to. Even if studies have shown patients that are lied to about the severity of their condition tend to have a greater chance of recovery, you are still giving them and their families false hope. More importantly, chemotherapy is a painful, horrific test of one's endurance, not to mention a time consuming and expensive one. If you lie to your patients about their likelyhood of survival, you are effectively robbing them of the choice to reject the potentially pointless treatment that will consume their last days, and to spend them living their life to its fullest potential in what little time they have left. I repeat myself; under no circumstances must a medical proffessional ever lie to a patient.
It would depend. If the option B is better for the patient, well maybe it's a better idea, even if it's lying to them. But it's still unfair for some people who want to hear the truth. I'm sure if some people would know that their days are really counted, they would fully live them, and perhaps they would have time to say goodbye to people ? I mean, isn't it frustrating that if doctors tell you they're just keeping you here to make sure there's no problem, but you realise a few months/weeks later that your state is getting worse ? I suppose it depends of the person.
I think that you should lie. Err, exaggerate. But make it go the other way. "The cancer has spread throughout your entire body. It's a miracle that you're alive. The only thing that has been keeping you going for so long is your will to live. Sooooo... keep it up! Woo" I know that this is a hypothetical situation, but if cancer spreads throughout your entire body before they catch it at all, then you don't have chances of "survival." You have chances of "prolonging." Depending on what type of cancer it is and how aggressive it is (ie, if your patient is a bit of a twit for not noticing any kind of sign when this thing has been happening for years or if the cancer spread like wildfire due to some accelerating environmental factor or genetic predisposition) you can slow the spread of the cancer and possibly stop it, but there's no surefire way that you can shrink it enough to have a real effect. You can't really remove it if it's everywhere, and depending on the severity it may have already irreversibly damaged organs. And it's difficult to get a board to sign off on transplants in a terminal patient. I assisted an autopsy a while ago that the family had requested for insurance reasons - they wanted to be able to prove that the death of this man was linked to the exposure to asbestos that he had endured as part of his job. When we opened him up, there was, like, two pounds of cancer in his lungs. The doctor that I was there with told me that I was lucky to be able to see that, because in his 40 years of cutting people open he'd never seen that much cancer in someone. If there's that much cancer, everyone knows that you're going to die. It's never a shock. If you tell someone that they've been keeping themselves alive sheerly on willpower, then they're going to want to keep fighting. Treatment is terrible to go through, and if you lie and say that there's not really anything wrong with them, nobody's going to do it. Therefore it's nearly impossible for the chances of any kind of improvement will increase if you tell them that they're fine. If you tell them that it's that they're dying, then they're going to get seriously depressed. If you tell them that they should already be dead, then they're going to be depressed, sure, but they're also going to majorly appreciate life and work hard to stay alive. Half of recovery is wanting to get better.