Read the Mother Courage article and the DIY scientist articles. What major ethical error did a doctor make in the first article? What do you attribute the difference in insight between this doctor and Jill Viles? You will get 2 points for answering this question. You will get 1 point if you comment on someone else’s answer (Give their name), but you must first make a comment before you can read and comment. Note that I must approve the first comment, so you won’t see your comments until after I approve them.
In the Mother Courage article the neurologist at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital berated her for having a second boy even after she “knew” the first son had Duchenne, and suggested she should have prevented or terminated the pregnancy. That is a major ethical error because she was at the doctors office to find out what was wrong with her boys in the first place so she obviously was not aware that her first son had this disease and with no one in the family with the disease either it was very wrong of the neurologist to assume that of her. In the other article Jill is also talked down to by a neurologist for believing she has Emery-Dreifuss. The neurologist wouldn’t even look at Jill’s paperwork and instead says “No you don’t have that” which later turned out to be false because she does have that disease. I believe the difference of insight is because the neurologist didn’t want to be showed up per say by a teenager knowing more than the doctor, so instead the neurologist just pushed it off instead of taking Jill seriously.
I agree that the doctor did not want to admit she had it out of pride. That would have meant Jill would have gotten the credit, and it may have looked bad on the doctor’s part even though she was right in the end.
I agree with you on both of the cases. Just because someone might not be a doctor doesn’t mean they aren’t aware of what is going on in their body. As for the Mother Courage article, it was saddening to see how quickly the neurologists dismissed Pat’s feelings and thought on her children. It seems that these two doctors were just too arrogant to accept other possibilities or beliefs, and that it was either “their way or the highway.”
I think it was ethically wrong for the doctor to basically tell her that she should have aborted her second child. First of all, she wasn’t aware she had this gene because for her case it came up spontaneously. Since it was attributed to her genes, and not her husbands, she could have already blamed herself. Second of all, it would be a little too late for that suggestion seeing as how the child was already alive. I think what is so different is that in Jill’s case she had no schooling or formal education on any kind of medical subject, therefore it was easy for the neurologist to dismiss her claims because she presumably gets self-diagnosing patients often. I also think that in the medical field or scientific community they are more open to sharing with one another and publishing their thoughts and research formally, but to have someone come with what seems like absurd ideas from outside of this community is hard for them to accept the possibility of them being right. Although at least the doctor in the first article was straightforward and honest with them, Jill’s doctor was not so much.
I agree. I feel that is a major ethics violation on the part of the doctor to just “assume” the mother knew about her children and for her to not have a second child or to abort it. That doctor should lose his license. But I’m sure there is more to the story than what we are reading.
She went to all of the doctors in town, but not a single doctor picked up Patrick to examine him. There were no questions of how the mother knew something was wrong, but didn’t know exactly what it was. There were no questions of how he behaves when he is at home. The first unethically thing that wasn’t done was provide medical attention to a child who needed it. Even if the doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong, at least exam the child.
Yes i agree doctors should listen to their patients more, but then again there are people who are always thinking they’re sick and thats what makes doctors not think there is anything wrong. It is hard and i feel that doctors are so busy that if its not a noticeable thing then they will over look it.
In Jill’s case, she had no medical background and therefore the doctors were quite sure she may be out of her mind suggesting such a diagnosis. Doctors are always telling patients to not self-diagnose themselves because they lack the training that is required. Jill was a special case in that she was right from the start. Being in the medical field myself, I feel the doctors should have at least looked into her situation as they could plainly see that there was an abnormality about Jill. Sorry this is part 2 of the questions.
I think that a very touchy ethical issue was with the doctor telling her that she should have aborted her second child and that she should have knew. He assumed that it was in her family and didn’t’t do much research before telling a mother that kind of answer. The difference between this doctor not looking further into it and jill vibes is that Jill had researched what she thought she had and had so much information on it that some doctors were thinking she could be obsessed and that theres no way she could have diagnosed what she and an olympic gymnast have the same mutation just from google images.
Doctors are people with opinions, just like you and me. As a doctor there is a difference between sharing an opinion with a friend and with a patient. The major ethical error that occurred in the first article. Specifically, this ethical error took place when the doctor in the article decided to share his personal opinion of what Pat Furlong (his patient) should have done when she found out that she was pregnant with her second son. He essentially called Pat Furlong a bad mother for not aborting her second son. This is a huge ethical error.
There is a difference between the first doctor in the Mother Courage article and the doctor that wrote the article for THE DIY Scientist, the Olympian, and the Mutated Gene. The first doctor chose to state his opinion loudly and boldly with lack of respect. The Doctor that wrote The DIY Scientist…ext. took his opinion and decided to not share it right away. He also took his patient seriously unlike the doctor from the Mother Courage article.
Bailey,
I do agree with you that the doctors took very different approaches. From the patient point of view it was also vastly different. Although Jill Viles didn’t feel listened to at all she ended up being looked at as an unbelievably dedicated, smart, hero for her endurance in diagnosing not only herself, her family, and a complete stranger. I felt from reading both articles that Jill had an easier time being accepted along side of these doctors; whereas, Pat Furlong had fought tooth and nail to be listened to and taken seriously. So much so that at the end of the article she said she was happy of where the Duchennes headquarters wound up near her home because it was like taking everything back to where it started when she was told there was nothing that she could do.
A doctor has to face many patients every single day, that’s just his job,not his own life. When he is back home from his office, he usually forgets all his patients and their problems and enjoys the moments togerther with his family members. But for a patient, the disease may destroy his whole life and even destroy his family. He has to live with the disease every day, every second. So it is impossible for doctors to understand completely what their patients are facing and what they are feeling. On the other hand, doctors and patients may come from different cultural backgrounds, they sometimes hold very different ethical opinions, serious conflicts between doctors and patients are not uncommon, like what has happened in the first article. I agree the person who knows best about a disease is the patient himself. Doctor should not think they know everything, they should try to respect their patients and communicate with them equally.
While I agree with your points on how a doctor should be respectful of their patients and be the best possible liaison for relaying information to patients as possible, I do not agree fully with your comment on how a doctor “forgets their patients and their problems”. Having first hand experience in the medical field, and having a doctor in my own personal family, have lead me to know that one does not simply leave their work at work, especially in a medical profession. The job that many of these medical professionals have, especially doctors is much more than a job. While it may seem like the doctor in this situation has it easy, because they are going home to possibly care for children that don’t have a muscular dystrophy doesn’t necessarily mean that a diagnosis earlier in that day doesn’t weigh on their heart or affect the way they care for and treat patients in the future. The doctors that I know, and the doctors that I have worked closely with are all very caring and compassionate, many of which feel what their patients feel. I don’t think it is fair to say that doctors have the ability to leave these cases, especially the hard ones at work when in all actuality those are the ones that tend to stay with them.
In the first article Mother Courage the doctor made the ethical mistake to tell the mother that she shouldn’t have had another child or if that when she found out she was having a second boy she should have terminated her pregnancy. From the article it sounds as though she was not aware prior to her second boy that her first boy had had Duchennes. For the doctor to treat her badly and imply as though she was a bad mother for having brought her children into this world was ethically wrong. Since pregnancy and abortions are such controversial subjects he should have stayed clear of this topic since she know had two toddler boys and the fact remained that the needed medical care. This doctor was vastly different than that of Jill Viles, who had successfully diagnosed her family with a rare form of muscular dystrophy as well as aided in finding treatments. The doctor in Mother Courage had told Mrs. Furlong that there was nothing that she could do for her boys, that they were going to die and she needed to just take them home and love them. Jill Viles, on the other hand after having not been listened to by many doctors spent countless hours studying her own disease and seeking out people for help and participated in studies to help determine what caused her to have the disease so a treatment/cure could then be researched.
The doctor also made an ethical mistake in saying that she should just take her boys home and love them, for they would certainly die; as if this was her only option. If Furlong would have followed this advice then there would have been significantly less funding and research towards this rare type of MD, and the future would still be bleak for people diagnosed with this disease. Her drive to find funding changed the landscape for MD and if she had decided to take the doctors advice and not take initiative the outlook for Duchennes would be bleak still. Thankfully she did not, and her time and devotion have aided in the treatment for Duchennes.
In the article “Mother Courage” the doctor accuses Furlong of knowing she had a genetic condition (probably because she was a nurse) and told her that she could have avoided having two children with the genetic condition because she had the ability to elect to have an abortion (despite both boys being born already when she discovered the link). This blaming of Furlong is an ethical mistake on the doctors part. This doctor had medical knowledge from years of medical school to base this accusation on- realizing the risk in having children with parents giving the genes to them. Jill Villes was an advocate for her own health and researched every bit of her condition without much medical knowledge whatsoever, only a desire to research and discover links that uncovered her genetic history. In this way the doctor and Jill are vastly different, and without, perhaps, proper understanding of genetic links Jill decided to have a child of her own, something that the doctor would probably advise against.
Hi Alison,
I agree with your statement that the ethical error was made when Pat’s doctor basically told her she should have aborted her second boy. This is ethically wrong in many ways, especially because she did not notice the symptoms of the Duchenne’s until her boys were older. As a doctor, it is his job to counsel his patients and help them with the best course of action, not berate an already worried mother and blame her for their disease. I also agree with you that Jill was a complete advocate for herself and if it wasn’t for her curiosity and drive, she may have never known about her disease. Jill also helped save the lives of two other people, including her dad and Priscilla.
I think you make a good point about how Jill was an advocate for her own health, yet the doctor didn’t even look at her research. I would think that doctors would enjoy to see this and encourage it. We are always told not to self-diagnose, but with the internet how can you not? If I were a doctor I would much rather like to see a patient who is interested in their health than the patient who doesn’t care and doesn’t want to be there.
So in the article “Mother Courage” which was the first article, the woman was a nurse and knew about human genetics. She did not know, however, she was a carrier for the Duchenne disease. The doctor basically told her she should have had an abortion but its not like she knew until her boys grew up and showed symptoms. Nobody else in her family had it. The ethical issue here was the doctor telling this woman she should have known to have an abortion because shes just going to give her children bad genes. Now the difference between this doctor and Jill is the fact that the guy is a doctor and spent years on research whereas Jill just spent a lot of time researching her specific disorder. What she did was awesome but she doesn’t know everything the doctor does. That is how their insight differs.
Although Jill doesn’t know everything that the doctor knows, she has a heart of a doctor. Her knowledge of the disease is comparable to that of a doctor. With her determination to find out the disease, I am sure she should’ve made it through medical school. What she lacked was the official national recognition for her expertise as other doctors have acquired through their board certification. Because of that, most of the doctors she came across looked down on her and didn’t believe her self-diagnosis.
Brandon Osiwala
I completely agree with you in why the doctor from Mother Courage was unethical. It just seems as though he should have completed a little more research in Duchenne to find out that there are some cases that are spontaneous. Although Jill had completed a self-diagnosis, it is completely arrogant for a doctor to ignore the facts that are given right in front of them. Just because a doctor has completed medical school does not mean that they know everything about the human body. There are so many new things that pop up everyday in research that doctors may not have been able to keep up with.
I support your arguments. I forgot about how that doctor was a fool for telling her to just give up and go home to her kids and love them while they live. I mean with that attitude, there would not be research for any diseases or cures. I mean when people got malaria did we just say, “oh that sucks, well just live life while you can” or did we fight it and fund research for a cure? Obviously we did not just roll over, we took matters into our own hands and found answers. The doctor should be more professional and encourage research.
In the first article, “Mother Courage”, I think we can all agree that the comments made by the doctor suggesting that the mother should have just aborted her second child were unethical. The doctor was quick to judge and make assumptions without having the entire background on the patient first. The article then states the case presented was caused by a spontaneous mutation, there was no way a genetic test could find out about it prior to this time. I think genetic testing can be utilized as a great tool but there are many areas of grey space when it comes to the unborn child. If you or your wife were pregnant, knowing that your unborn child has muscular dystrophy, specifically Duchenne’s and would be wheelchair bound by the time they were a teen, would you make different decisions about your pregnancy knowing this information? People will have different answers, viewpoints and opinions based on their backgrounds or religious viewpoints but it is definately something to take into consideration when bringing another life into the world.
The second article takes a closer look at Jill Viles and how she lives with a very rare case of muscular dystrophy, Emery-Dreifuss. She was able to self diagnose herself and in the process help her dad with some of his underlying medical conditions. Jill was relentless in her search for medical answers and found ways to go around any obstacle that got in her way, she was able to make the best medical decision possible for her and her family when she had her own child. The major difference that I noticed in these two different articles especially when looking at Jill and the doctor were the way that they approached the situation. One approached it with hope and a positive outlook while the other looked at it only as a negative. I think it is important to have hope and approach every situation with a positive outlook but I also think that it is just as important to be realistic and weigh every option before making any drastic medical decisions.
I agree that Jill approached her situation with hope, but there is a down side to a hopeful outlook as well. She took a risk when she decided to have a child of her own. Not only did she risk the future health of her child, she risked her own health as well. As you said, it is important o weigh every option before making a decision, and hope can blind us in our choices as well as fear. Jill could have instead have adopted a child or practiced genetic pre-screening of her eggs to ensure she didn’t pass on her condition. Instead, she trusted in blind hope. It was her choice to make, but I’m not sure I would have made the same one.
I find it very unethical for the doctor to straight out and told the mother that she should’ve aborted the 2nd child. Even if the mother knew beforehand that she had Duchenne, as a physician whom the patient trusts, respects, and turns to in time of need, he should not give judgement, blame, and more importantly, make the decision to abort the second. The difference between this doctor and Jill is that the doctor has a lot of knowledge of the given field and has gone through a medical program, and yet he couldn’t be professional and give the patient useful information, support, and compassion. On the other hand, Jill, an ordinary woman with no medical background, was able to gain knowledge through self-taught and became an expert of her condition. Moreover, she helped diagnosed and managed to save lives of others through her medical knowledge and compassion which was what the doctor should’ve done instead.
The Doctor from the “Mother Courage” article suggested that Furlong should realized something was wrong with her child and subsequently stopped having children. In doing this he violated many ethical standards including the Hippocratic oath by suggesting that Furlong should have had an apportion. Rather than focusing on healing the patient he focused on recrimination and accusation without proper investigation and diagnosis.
Jill Vilies thoroughly investigated and that of her family before attempting to discuss it with them. She investigate not only her phenotype, but also her genotype and the root cause of it’s expression in her family. I attribute the difference in insight between Jill and the doctor from Mother Courage to be her humility and his arrogance. While he possessed the experience and education to be able to make a diagnosis based on a basic examination, he used those skills to denigrate someone coming to him for help rather than listening to them.
In the Mother Courage article, what Pat Furlong went through with her sons and the doctors she was associated with was very disappointing. When Pat went to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital to speak with a neurologist about the Duchenne disease her boys had, the doctor was very unethical in how he handled the situation. Telling a patient, a mother at that, that there is no hope for their child, you could have aborted your second child, and say that they should have known that they had the disease was not only unethical, but rude and ignorant. When someone comes to a doctor for help, they are not looking for someone, with a higher degree, to tell them how wrong they are and what they should have done. The neurologist’s response towards the entire situation was not right. For the Jill Viles case, the neurologist she visited totally dismissed her belief that she could be a muscular dystrophy patient, even though it was later discovered that she did have the disease. The doctor didn’t want to believe a 19-year-old teen figured out a big discovery over her own intuition. In both of the cases, the two neurologists should have been more respectful towards their patients and at least look into their condition, whether it be a fluke or not.
In the Mother Courage article, there were many ethical errors performed by the doctor. The doctor assumed that the patient knew that she carried the gene for Duchenne when the patient had no idea, especially since her case was spontaneous. The doctor also gave the patient backlash for having a second child, thinking that the patient knew that the gene would be passed on. It is not up to the doctor to make decisions on whether or not the second pregnancy should have been aborted. The tone of voice given by the doctor is not appropriate in this case because the kids were already born, telling the patient what they should have done in the past is ineffective at this point.
Between the doctor from the mother courage article and the doctor in the DIY article, there were quite a few differences. The doctor in the DIY article absolutely refused to see any of the paperwork presented by the patient. The doctor also made the assumption that Emery-Dreifuss only occurred in men. Lastly, I got the impression that the doctor was arrogant because they did not want to be proved wrong by a teenager that made a self-diagnosis.
In the first article, “Mother Courage”, the doctor telling her that she should have known to abort her second boy is clearly unethical. She had no idea that she was a carrier for the condition, thus the reason she took her boys to see the doctor. It is very unfortunate that money dictates healthcare/funding. I was glad to see she was one of the main people behind bringing publicity and funding to MD and still continues even after her boys passed away. As a physician in this circumstance, you don’t tell the patient/family there’s nothing they can do (even if you think that to be true) and to just love them. We should know by now that science is always evolving so few things are actually certainties. The physician in article 2 should have taken the same advice. This doctor refused to even look at Jill’s materials because she was a female. If we were to put ourselves in the doctors shoes and a female brought us the same information Jill had, knowing that it occurs in males, instead of immediately refuted her ideas we should ideally use this information to conduct new research. As for the differences in insight between the two, I would note that doctors have more rigorous training compared to the general public (Jill).