A doctor with a bag.......?

[Quantum Quack]

Scenario.....

You are on a crowded train station, hundreds of people are gathered around waiting for the next train to arrive.

You notice that there is a person standing there with a bag and looks like a Doctor, in fact you know he is.

A person at the front of the crowd collapses, and persons nearby try to help. They start looking for some one to help the man.

The doctor sees this and has to decide do I help or don't I. He could be the difference between life and death but the Doctor is exhausted, he has been saving people all day at an emergency ward and the last thing he wants is to get involved in helping this man.

The Doctor can't be sure he will perform adequately because he is so tired and is aware that if he makes a mistake the guy that has collapsed may suffer even more so, but failure to act could also be detrimental.

If he acts and fails he could be sued for negligence. If he doesn't act he has his conscience to deal with.

What should he do?

 

[Quantum Quack]

For sure there is a bigger moral ethical question involved than as described above. To have the ability to heal but choose not to.

 

[SwedishFish]

he kinda has to. he took an oath.

 

[Hevene]

What you give to others, you give to yourself. Or put it differently, treat others the way you wanted to be treated. Then the answers becomes simpler. If he wanted to be saved in the above case, then save him, otherwise do the opposite. Every act is an act of self definition. The doctor should ask himself, who am I? and who do I want to be? If he wants to be someone who is kind and loving and caring, then save the man. If he wants to be self-fish or not loving, not caring then leave him to die.

 

[Quantum Quack]

Scenario No. 2

A bit more extreme.

Jesus Christ comes to earth and has the capacity to heal every person on the planet that needs healing ( everyone) but can only do it one person at a time. He also wants to lead a human existance. ( 6 billion persons at a rate of 20 a day =? )

What should he do? Does he get a holiday?

 

[Quantum Quack]

If he wants to be someone who is kind and loving and caring, then save the man. If he wants to be self-fish or not loving, not caring then leave him to die.

Actually this is the main reason for the thread.

We have Doctors who work in our hospital system who have to face huge waiting lists of people waiting for serious operations and treatments, some of those waiting are going to die waiting.

The Doctors have to live with this fact. The Doctors also have to live, have family and friends, need to exist happilly as well.

The "Doctor with a bag" I reckon is a real dilemma for Doctors who know they can help but have to say no. Knowing that if they say yes they will fail in the longer term to help anyone.

 

[Hevene]

Quantum Quack

This is a huge problem in our society. Lack of funding in hospitals, resulted in the long waiting list is not a problem that can simply be solved by the doctors alone. The duties of doctors is to save people, but the government is doing all it can to do the opposite, spending huge amount of money on weapons and wars. We should realise this is not an individuals problem, but a world's problem, therefore we need all the support and willingness to solve the problem. It's time to stop the wars, what we need here is not a peacekeeping force, but a peacemaking one. Peace and health for everyone.

 

[Xev]

The duties of doctors is to save people, but the government is doing all it can to do the opposite, spending huge amount of money on weapons and wars.

Since when was it the duty of government to save people?

 

[Quantum Quack]

I may have confused people here, but has any one understood the dilemma that I am attempting to describe?

There is an old movie that stared Jimmy Stewart who played a doctor who was hiding from the law by being a clown in a circus......if I remember correctly he gives himself away when he saves the life of his boss with a police detective watching.


His crime if i recall was that he euthanised his wife?????????

The question he faced was similar to the issue. Does he save the man and go to jail or does he plead ignorance of his ability and let his boss die.

( He decides to save his boss and ends up a free man any way)

Would some one else like to pose this dilemma in a different way or expand on it's nature?

 

[zanket]

The first thing the doc should ask himself is, how strong are the Good Samaritan laws at that place? If a Good Samaritan isn’t protected by law from liability, then the collapsed person may be the last patient the doc ever gets to help, in which case the doc should offer general, non-physical help if anything, and even then he should get the hell out of there before anyone gets his name, just in case. If the collapsed person dies as a result of the doc’s non-help then that’s the public’s fault for not demanding commonsense legislation.

If Good Samaritan laws are in place and routinely upheld even for off-duty docs, he should feel a clear conscience regardless of what help he offers if any. If he feels he’s so exhausted that his help may be worse than none, then obviously he should not help regardless of his desire to save the person. Likely he has the energy to do something though since he has the energy to stand on the platform.