"Facing Death", by Frontline, is a documentary that really gets you thinking about what you would do if you were in a situation like some of the people in Mt. Sinai hospital in New York. The documentary is about people who come to hospitals with diseases that are life shortening and the decisions they have to make, or their family has to make. In today's world, more Americans go to the ICU to die than to get better, and more Americans die in hospitals than anywhere else. The doctors have to have very difficult conversations with the patients, and if he patients can't communicate due to their disease or sedatives, the doctors talk to the family members. Very hard decisions have to be made. The family member has to decide whether the patient lives or dies, and this causes disputes within the family because some members don't agree on what is best or what to do. The doctors don't put their personal beliefs on a family, although they do have beliefs on what should be done for the patient. There are always patients who surprise the doctors and their families, however. Patients who the doctors didn't think would breathe on their own do, for example. There are always miracles. In an interview with one patient who has cancer and his wife, they say why give up? It is scary to sit there and do nothing, so why give up fighting to live? With advancing technology, there are always options for treatments. However, there is always a degree of uncertainty, for doctors, patients and family members. Doctors feel guilt when a patient dies. The doctor feels that the patients may have gone through unnecessary pain when they died, but it was the family member's decision, so the doctor had to follow. Between $20-25 billion a year is spent on people living on ventilators. Making a decision about your life is hard, and making one about someone else's life is even harder. People can prepare for what happens next, but they can never be completely ready.
In this documentary by Frontline, there are themes of demography and culture present. Anyone could contract a disease or an illness that threatens their life. It doesn't matter about their age or gender. The people in the documentary were of all different ages and genders and races, and they were all in the same boat. Their life was in danger and their families had to make a difficult decision. Culture is also a theme present in the documentary. There is new technology and new medicine that always provides an options for patients and their families. On the other hand, people think of hospitals as a place to go and get better, and that image in now changing. More Americans are going into hospitals and dying rather than getting better. Different cultures of different families also effect the decision they make on the patients life. Some families have different cultural values that make them decide one way or another, and some families disagree with one another which makes it difficult to come to a decision.
While watching this documentary I started thinking about what I would do if I was in this situation. If I was the patient, and there was a good chance of me getting better on life support, I would want to do it. But if I was on life support for a really long time and I wasn't getting better, I would want my family to pull the plug because that is not living in my opinion. Lying in a hospital bed for the rest of my life is not living to me. If someone I loved was on life support and I had to decide whether to take them off or leave them on, I would have a difficult time deciding. I would have to talk with them about it before they couldn't communicate any longer. I would base my decision for them off the same idea as for me. If there was a good chance of them getting better, I would keep them on. But if they were on for a long period of time, I would take them off because they aren't really living. It is an extremely hard decision for anyone to make, and it is unfortunate that so many people have to make it.
Bibliography:
O'Connor, Karen, Navasky, Miri, dir. "Facing Death." Frontline. PBS, 23 November 2010.
Web. 27 March 2014.
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