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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland
Posts: 24,828
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by swatsurgeon
Gentlemen/ brothers in medical arms,
We are the most compassionate and caring bunch of cold hearted practicioners of the healing arts. You more than me know the emotional toll treating a combat or civilian casualty takes on you.......especially a friend or a kid.
Let's agree on one thing, we do things that hurt, period. We sometimes do and sometimes do not have the luxury of administering analgesics pre-procedure, other times just alittle and other times adaquate doses. We do this with one thing in mind: help the patient.
What is in play here is the 'Principle of Double Effect':
- the act must be good or morally neutral
- the agent (procedure) intends only the good effect, the bad effect may be tolerated but NOT intended
- the bad effect must not be a means to the good effect
- the good effect must outweigh the bad effect
We must be careful with words and explanations, to the public and sometimes to each other. The phrase: the pain is the patient's problem, is actually inaccurate. The pain is the patient's symptom and it is my problem to deal with the best I can.
Read the trailer on my post...it has real meaning and means alot to me. I am human, I hurt when they hurt, I do things that really hurt and do my best to allieviate that hurt when it is appropriate. I recently took an open angulated ankle fracture, the patient was already screaming and as soon as he hit the trauma bay, I reduced it before the nurse could give the meds I ordered: 150 mics of fentanyl and 2 mg versed, but after the reduction, his pain went from a 10:10 to a 5:10, then the meds kicked in and he was happier still. Did I violate a trust that he had in me to help him by causing a momentary increase in his already 10:10 pain? No, I don't believe I did, I made a "monumentous and dreadful" decision, all in the patient's interest. But, no the pain is not his problem, it remains mine and to that I will not back down from and either should any of you. You (we) are 'warrior' healers, never forget that, but the patient always should suffer less than you.
Respectfully,
ss
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And that, Gents, I believe is referred to as medical ethics and a professional opinion.
Thanks, Doc.
TR
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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