Assignment: Health Care Providers
Assignment: Health Care Providers
Details:
The practice of health care providers at all levels brings you into contact with people from a variety of faiths. This calls for knowledge and understanding of a diversity of faith expressions; for the purpose of this course, the focus will be on the Christian worldview.
Based on “Case Study: End of Life Decisions,” the Christian worldview, and the worldview questions presented in the required topic study materials you will complete an ethical analysis of George’s situation and his decision from the perspective of the Christian worldview.
Provide a 1,500-2,000-word ethical analysis while answering the following questions:
How would George interpret his suffering in light of the Christian narrative, with an emphasis on the fallenness of the world?
How would George interpret his suffering in light of the Christian narrative, with an emphasis on the hope of resurrection?
As George contemplates life with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), how would the Christian worldview inform his view about the value of his life as a person?
What sorts of values and considerations would the Christian worldview focus on in deliberating about whether or not George should opt for euthanasia?
Given the above, what options would be morally justified in the Christian worldview for George and why?
Based on your worldview, what decision would you make if you were in George’s situation?
Remember to support your responses with the topic study materials.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is required.
End-of-life decision making is a growing need in the ICU, covering a continuum of treatment possibilities. The author describes end-of-life decision making in the ICU and suggests strategies for improving the process for healthcare providers as well as patients and patients’ families.
Mrs J., a 75-year-old widow, was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) after heart surgery. Before the surgery, she hd been active in her community and enjoyed canning, quilting, and helping her elderly friends. Her greatest fear about surgery was that she might have a stroke, and she asked her daughter, Grace, who was the designated decision maker on Mrs J.’s advance directive, to promise that if something happened to prevent Mrs J. from returning to her independent lifestyle, Grace would make sure that life-prolonging treatment was not continued.
Initially, Mrs J. did well after surgery, but she had a debilitating brain stem stroke several days later and required intubation, mechanical ventilation, and tube feedings. Grace, being very clear about her mother’s wishes, asked the physicians to stop the mechanical ventilation and the tube feedings. Three physicians were involved in Mrs J.’s care. Because of philosophical differences related to their specialties, they could not agree on a decision to discontinue treatment, despite repeated requests from Grace. Grace began to feel angry, and nurses caring for Mrs J. felt torn and frustrated.
Scenarios such as this are not uncommon in ICUs and require that those caring for patients in the unit be proficient not only in saving lives but also in providing expert care at the end of life. In this article, I focus on one aspect of end-of-life care in the ICU, namely, end-of-life decision making. On the basis of recent research in nursing, medicine, and social sciences, I describe end-of-life decision making in the ICU and suggest strategies for improving the process for healthcare providers as well as patients and patients’ families.
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
