InternalOptimist

Overdose

[copied from half way through]

To cut the story short, after a day on the treatment, it was decided that this poor bloke needed a liver transplant as the liver was failing. An organ your body cannot do without and, unlike the kidneys with dialysis, there is no artificial support method for a damaged liver. Either he will get a liver transplant in time, or he will die. Pretty shocking news for his family.


A couple of days after seeing this patient, myself and the other 5 students on my firm were discussing some of the patients we had seen that week. Most of us had met the same patients, but had all spent varying time with each one, so talking about the patients with each other lets us learn more. I was talking to my colleges about the patient who had come in with a paracetamol overdose, and the fact that he will now need a new liver. One of my colleges, a nice friendly girl, usually with a smile on her face, goes and drops a bombshell of a reply.

"Why give him a new liver? He destroyed his old one. What a waste!"

You are joking, right? All those years of boring ethics lectures and you can pop out a comment like that?

No, she wasn't joking. She genuinely and honestly thought that because this patient had damaged himself and destroyed his own liver he shouldn't be allowed a new liver and should instead be left to die. What about ex-alcoholics who need new livers? What about people involved in car accidents where they were exceeding the speed limit? What about people who decide to smoke and end up with lung cancer? What about people who eat too much, get fat and end up having a heart attack? Nope! They don't deserve our treatment because they did this to themselves!

Its quite simple. Mental illness is a disease, just like having a broken leg or a stroke. With the right management, care, and support into turning his life around this person will not remain suicidal for the rest of his life. Just because he was ill enough to think that suicide was the only way out of the situation he was in, does that mean you just want to go and kill him for it?

Anyway, I will not rant for too long on this case. It was just amazing to see someone who seemed like a nicely balanced, friendly person with a decent ethical education rain down judgement on someone whose life was so different from hers that she must have no idea of how he felt. How can you look down on someone who decided to take their life after all of these bad things happen if you haven't had them happen to you? How does this medical student know that if half these things had happened to her she wouldn't have gotten upset and tried something similar. And then how would she like to be told, once she was in a better place mentally, that she would be left to die because she had done this to herself. It is beyond belief. Anyway - I really hope that the next few years bring this eduction to those who need it on the course. I hope there are not that many third year medical students and upwards who would think like this.

Anyway, I wasn't that outspokenly offended by her - I showed by distaste (I think I might have used disappointment rather than distaste) in her views, but I have to spend time with her and don't want her to think that I am a massive morally righteous douche-bag so I kept it calm, but kind of regret that now.

[Blog continued at http://internal-optimist.blogspot.com/ ] if you want to read the full start/end etc!

Have a good week!