Not my fault
Blogger.com was really screwy this past Monday when I went to try and post something here.
Now having cleansed myself of all blame in the matter, and therefore having no injustices to correct, I will, in spite of those unshakable truths, post something here anyway.
It is not new or unique, it is in fact a repost of something I wrote in another blog. But here it is anyway.
------
I have been currently enjoying episodes of House each week as they come along. It recently occured to me that I like to watch House almost more for the side-plots than I do for the main plot. Of course, I also love the character of Dr. House, who is basically a Dr. Cox "without the limp".
As each new patient of Dr. House passes through his halls, they bring along with them their most mysterious ailments but also their own imperfect lives. I'm not a medical student nor have I had any exposure to the medical field, and while each patient's illness and associated diagnosis is nothing but fascinating to me, what really piques my interest are the patient's human failings.
House, as a whole, paints a pretty bleak landscape of the human soul. Almost every case that walks through would rather maintain a lie than communicate honestly with their loved ones, even if it means their lives. Sometimes it's something as simple as a lie they maintain to keep a spouse from leaving, but last night's epsiode came with a ethical/moral twist.
It's these kinds of "problems" I love disseminating the most, they have no solutions and they will never draw a consensus opinion. The patient from last night's episode had a rapidly failing liver and needed a new one. She can't get a new liver on the donor list because the doctors cannot unravel what is causing the organ failure in the first place (so if she were to get a new liver, it would be considered a 'waste' since whatever is wrong with her now will also consume the new liver.) However, her partner (they are a lesbian couple, irrelevant to the matter, but tastey nonetheless,) is of her bloodtype and therefore could donate part of her liver to buy House and his team some more time to diagnose the problem and hopefully save her.
The catch is that prior to her liver failure she had admitted to the staff of doctors that she had been planning on leaving her partner (she was 'caught' in a lie that she would rather keep even though it was tied to something medically relevant.) Once it became apparent she would need a new liver her partner immediately asked to be the donor so that she could be bought the extra time that might save her life. The ethical dilemma is whether or not the doctors in this case should tell her what they know about her partner's plans to leave her since that may change her mind about undergoing a potentially life threatening procedure.
When the patient was confronted about it by one of the doctors (who felt it was unethical to allow the potential donor go through with it without all of the 'facts',) she acknowledged the conflict of interest but simply asked, "would you choose to die?". The confession, if it were to take place at all, would not come from the patient herself. At this point, doctors can choose to feign ignorance, and give their patient the best possible odds to have her life saved. Or they could disclose everything to her partner and possibly lose their patient's only hope, slim as it is. Throw into the mix the fact that the issue to the partner isn't a medical one, and therefore the doctors have no obligation to reveal it to her, and you have a riveting puzzle.
My view is that as a doctor, you do not tell the potential donor that her partner wants to leave her but you advise the patient to tell her partner herself. Donating a liver is a voluntary procedure, and whether or not the recipient loves the donor neither increases nor decreases the risks, therefore is irrelevant. It is not a doctor's job to play counselor and make sure everyone is emotionally healthy, honest and well-adjusted. It is a doctor's job to do what he can to save a life, if someone is volunteering a liver, take it.
In the end, the donor wasn't told and the patient's life was extended and eventually saved. Near the conclusion of the episode the donor was talking to a doctor and confessed that she had known all along that the patient was planning on leaving her. When asked why she went through with the procedure anyway, she responded: "well she can't leave me now, can she?"
Ah what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to decieve. As it turned out, neither person's intentions were any more pure than the other's. One wanted to save her own life, the other sought to hold captive the life of another. Both are selfish, but only one is truly evil. I'm only speaking of intentions of course, since the patient did allow her partner to go through with the surgery, it could be said that she put herself in the position of being manipulated by her partner. You could say that what it comes down to is that these two "deserve" one another.
The world may be a better place if we as a people approached all relationships with honest, open communication all the time, but unfortunately that is not reality. I'm also not convinced that is actually for the best. We as humans are emotionally and mentally fragile and weak. We have our inspired moments, but I believe we live in self-doubt and want for validation most of our lives. We end the day justifying the energy we exhaust building and maintaining our myriad of pretenses under the guise of protecting those we work to actively decieve, but I have a notion that we really are doing it to protect our own psyche. For if we were able to view with perfect clarity our true nature, our naked thoughts, desires and motivations, I believe none of us could live with ourselves.
Now having cleansed myself of all blame in the matter, and therefore having no injustices to correct, I will, in spite of those unshakable truths, post something here anyway.
It is not new or unique, it is in fact a repost of something I wrote in another blog. But here it is anyway.
------
I have been currently enjoying episodes of House each week as they come along. It recently occured to me that I like to watch House almost more for the side-plots than I do for the main plot. Of course, I also love the character of Dr. House, who is basically a Dr. Cox "without the limp".
As each new patient of Dr. House passes through his halls, they bring along with them their most mysterious ailments but also their own imperfect lives. I'm not a medical student nor have I had any exposure to the medical field, and while each patient's illness and associated diagnosis is nothing but fascinating to me, what really piques my interest are the patient's human failings.
House, as a whole, paints a pretty bleak landscape of the human soul. Almost every case that walks through would rather maintain a lie than communicate honestly with their loved ones, even if it means their lives. Sometimes it's something as simple as a lie they maintain to keep a spouse from leaving, but last night's epsiode came with a ethical/moral twist.
It's these kinds of "problems" I love disseminating the most, they have no solutions and they will never draw a consensus opinion. The patient from last night's episode had a rapidly failing liver and needed a new one. She can't get a new liver on the donor list because the doctors cannot unravel what is causing the organ failure in the first place (so if she were to get a new liver, it would be considered a 'waste' since whatever is wrong with her now will also consume the new liver.) However, her partner (they are a lesbian couple, irrelevant to the matter, but tastey nonetheless,) is of her bloodtype and therefore could donate part of her liver to buy House and his team some more time to diagnose the problem and hopefully save her.
The catch is that prior to her liver failure she had admitted to the staff of doctors that she had been planning on leaving her partner (she was 'caught' in a lie that she would rather keep even though it was tied to something medically relevant.) Once it became apparent she would need a new liver her partner immediately asked to be the donor so that she could be bought the extra time that might save her life. The ethical dilemma is whether or not the doctors in this case should tell her what they know about her partner's plans to leave her since that may change her mind about undergoing a potentially life threatening procedure.
When the patient was confronted about it by one of the doctors (who felt it was unethical to allow the potential donor go through with it without all of the 'facts',) she acknowledged the conflict of interest but simply asked, "would you choose to die?". The confession, if it were to take place at all, would not come from the patient herself. At this point, doctors can choose to feign ignorance, and give their patient the best possible odds to have her life saved. Or they could disclose everything to her partner and possibly lose their patient's only hope, slim as it is. Throw into the mix the fact that the issue to the partner isn't a medical one, and therefore the doctors have no obligation to reveal it to her, and you have a riveting puzzle.
My view is that as a doctor, you do not tell the potential donor that her partner wants to leave her but you advise the patient to tell her partner herself. Donating a liver is a voluntary procedure, and whether or not the recipient loves the donor neither increases nor decreases the risks, therefore is irrelevant. It is not a doctor's job to play counselor and make sure everyone is emotionally healthy, honest and well-adjusted. It is a doctor's job to do what he can to save a life, if someone is volunteering a liver, take it.
In the end, the donor wasn't told and the patient's life was extended and eventually saved. Near the conclusion of the episode the donor was talking to a doctor and confessed that she had known all along that the patient was planning on leaving her. When asked why she went through with the procedure anyway, she responded: "well she can't leave me now, can she?"
Ah what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to decieve. As it turned out, neither person's intentions were any more pure than the other's. One wanted to save her own life, the other sought to hold captive the life of another. Both are selfish, but only one is truly evil. I'm only speaking of intentions of course, since the patient did allow her partner to go through with the surgery, it could be said that she put herself in the position of being manipulated by her partner. You could say that what it comes down to is that these two "deserve" one another.
The world may be a better place if we as a people approached all relationships with honest, open communication all the time, but unfortunately that is not reality. I'm also not convinced that is actually for the best. We as humans are emotionally and mentally fragile and weak. We have our inspired moments, but I believe we live in self-doubt and want for validation most of our lives. We end the day justifying the energy we exhaust building and maintaining our myriad of pretenses under the guise of protecting those we work to actively decieve, but I have a notion that we really are doing it to protect our own psyche. For if we were able to view with perfect clarity our true nature, our naked thoughts, desires and motivations, I believe none of us could live with ourselves.
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10:14 AM
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