Read the Mother Courage article and the DIY scientist articles. What major ethical error did a doctor make in the Mother Courage article? How do you attribute the difference in insight between this doctor and the insight shown by Jill Viles?
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In the ‘Mother Courage’ article, the doctor blamed the mother for passing on the disease to her children because the doctor said that she should have been aware of her disease before reproducing. The doctor assumed that it had been inherited from the mother without doing any sort of testing. The doctor also told this mother that she should have aborted her second baby in a harsh manner which I find very unethical of someone if the medical field.
The major difference between the first doctor and Villes was their view point of the conditions and being willing to dig deeper. Villes had a genetic order so she understood the families pain much more and was much more caring and sympathetic towards the family. The first article the family was told that there was nothing they could do and they were stuck with the cards they were delt where as in the second article Villes was determined to find help.
In Mother Courage article, among the ethical error the doctor made was that he did not ran a test before confirming that the boy had Duchenne. The second ethical error seem to be when the doctor expressed that there was no hope or way to save the boys, so she should just take them home and love them. The same doctor then went on to tell her that she should have known about this genetic condition as it is usually passed down, and that she should not have had another child because of it or aborted it when in reality the mutation had not been passed down to her. This doctor differs from Jill in the sense that Jill took it upon herself to thoughroughly research what her disease could be so she could be properly informed , unlike the doctor that just took one look at the boys in mother courage and diagnosed them without tests. Their outlooks are also very different. The doctor in Mother Courage supported giving up on the boys and their disorder, while Jill reminded positive and proactive to find ways to help both herself and others, similar to Furlong.
The biggest ethical error the doctor made was saying nothing could be done to help or save the boys and that the mother should take them home. The same doctor that told them to go home decided to blame the mother for having her kids. And that if she got pregnant she should have had an abortion to spare the kids for this disease. Even though we know it was not passed through her family. Which ultimately leads to the difference between was the doctors were demeanor. We had one doctor say they are hopeless and blaming the mother for having kids. The second doctor was kind and did a lot of research trying to find a way to help or save the boys.
In the article ‘Mother Courage’, an ethical error made by doctors was when Furlong was told the diagnosis of her two sons. The doctor failed to educate Furlong on the disease and further accused her of being the reason her sons had this terrible disease, by failing to realize that there was no family history of muscular dystrophy. The doctor should have given Furlong and her family resources to either help them during the difficult time, or referred them to specialists in the disease. Had the doctor recognized that Furlong’s case was among the 1/3 of cases in which the mutation for muscular dystrophy appears spontaneously, the doctor could have helped the family in terms of research opportunities or funding. Overall, this doctor attempted to provide any insight to the Furlong family.
Conversely, Jill Viles did everything in her power to gain insight on the symptoms her and her family members were facing. She dedicated countless hours to researching potential illnesses and even took it upon herself to get an accurate diagnosis. Her dedication to understanding her disease allowed her to save two different people who were approaching a life threatening event.
In the Mother Courage Article, the most unethical error the first doctor made was that he did not run any tests before telling the mother that her son had Duchenne and that if her other son, the he did not see, looked the same then he also had the same diagnosis. When she was transfered to a neurologist he did testing that confirmed the diagnosis. But this doctor told Furlong that there is no hope and to go home. He also went on to tell her that she was the ones to give her sons this deadly genetic disease. He also stated that she should not have have the second pregnancy or if she did then she should’ve aborted the baby.
The main difference that I see between those doctors and Jill Viles is that Jill was willing to share the research that she has gathered over many years. She was willing to help o many people she was also going through the same pain. She knew what it was like to have a form of muscular dystrophy.
Some ethical errors I saw in Mother Courage is one of the doctors telling Furlong her son’s had Duchenne prior to conducting any proper testing. This same doctor guilt tripped Furlong telling her that she should have known of this gene and went as far as to say she should have aborted her second son once she saw symptoms in her first son.
The difference I noticed in the doctors in Mother Courage and the insight in DIY Science is that Jill did a thorough search and made an effort to reach out to individuals seeking tests and information regarding her particular condition (Emery-Dreifuss). It’s a tad bit unfortunate but money makes a big difference in research efforts as well. In the beginning of Mother Courage Furlong seemed to pursue the answers from doctors who weren’t particularly interested in her sons’ alleged Duchenne even after being turned down and lied to opposed to doing the majority of the research on her own. It seems that in cases of rare diseases or conditions being brought to specialists’ attention, sometimes or many times the only way to get answers is by dedicating your life and savings account to finding them.
In the article Mother courage it was difficult for me to overlook the unethical action of blaming the mother for birthing her sons. As we’ve seen these first two chapters genetics is quite enigmatic aspect of human development. Often it is really out of our hands as humans to mess with genetics. A little of topic but yes I am going to call out GMO and trying to bring back some extinct species. Further, the doctor telling the mother that she should have known better and that she should have aborted, to me it was unprofessional and an overstep of his boundaries. Also I’d like to mention it reminded me a little of eugenics and it creeped me a little.
To contrast that, in Jill Vile’s case, it was admirable how much hard work she put and the courage to face your own fear. Both articles dealt with extremely rare diseases but the insight given by Jill goes to show that there is so much we do not yet understand about genetics; thus, we should not merely assume that any genetic disease is fixed. For instance, when they told Jill that her disease could only be present in male and they neglected her. I mean after all mother nature like genetic diversity so mutations and alterations to these are bound to occur.
Multiple major ethical errors were made by the doctor in the Mother Courage article. When the mother first found out her sons had Duchenne, the neurologist told her there was no hope, which is definitely not what you should say to a mother who recently found out heartbreaking news. They also told her that it was her son’s fault her sons had Duchenne, they told her she should have known that she had it, and she should have gotten rid of her second child. This again, is never okay to say to a patient. The doctor did not even look into what caused the disease, which it ended up not being her fault. The orthopedic surgeon also did not even run any tests, which they should have done.
The main difference I noticed between the doctor in the Mother Courage article and Jill Viles was the fact that Jill tried to find more information about her disease and help others, she didn’t give up, whereas the doctor just told the mother there was no hope and didn’t even try to help her. Jill went out of her way and spent most of her time researching her disease, and trying to help those with the disease. She did not lose hope, she tried everything she could to get diagnosed and tried to help fight the disease. The doctor on the other hand didn’t even try. He gave up the moment he realized the sons had Duchenne. Jill also was more genuine to the situation, because she had the disease, she was the patient so she knew what it was like to have her disease. The doctor in Mother Courage on the other hand did not. He had no insight yet he told the mother to just give up hope.
In the Mother Courage article, one major mistake that the doctor made was not running tests before diagnosing Pat’s son. In the article, she explains that the neurologist told her that there was no hope for her child and she should just take him home and love him. The neurologist also said that the mother should have known about the disease before having a second child. The difference I noticed between the doctor from the Mother Courage article and the DIY Scientist article was that Jill was trying to find and research more information about her disease and wanted to educate and advocate for those who also had it. The doctor in the first article made it seem like a horrible thing that Pat’s kids were born.
Personally, the biggest ethical error is the doctor telling Pat she should have never had her second son in the first place. The neurologist told Pat “You could have prevented the second pregnancy, or you could have aborted the second pregnancy”. Which completely crosses the professional boundary by telling Pat his personal opinion based on her lifestyle choices.
The biggest difference with Jill’s insight and the doctors is the decision they made certain that there was no getting better from this mutation. Simply put, If you have it, you’re stick with it. However, Vile’s did not rely on the doctors to tell her if the disease could get better or not. She decided to do her own research and interviewing an Olympic athlete. Doctors had told Jill that she could not possibly get better. Although, after getting back results from the Olympian; It was evident the Olympian improved and there was hope for Jill.
In the article ‘Mother Courage’, an ethical error made when the doctor told the mother it was her fault that her sons ended up in the positions they were in. The doctor has no right to accuse of blame a patient for something they were really unaware of. This crosses a boundary that a physician should know not to cross. The doctor also does not even run tests before diagnosing Pat’s son. For these reasons, the doctor is totally unprofessional and should have conducted themselves in a different manner.
On the other hand, with the article with Jill, Jill tries to go out of her way to find out more information about the disease, and didn’t give up until she had a grasp on the disease she was looking into. She dedicated hours and hours to doing her research on this unique disease. She remains positive throughout to try to help the patients and the doctors to find the answer to the common issue.
I think that the doctor in the article was too opinionated in many manners, especially by putting the complete blame on the mother who was unaware of the disease. I can’t even imagine what feelings and emotions she went through in the moment. Therefore, the doctor did not go out of his way to even find a possible solution to the next steps and immediately brought up abortion and such.
Meanwhile, Jill seems profession and experienced in her field, but most importantly she did her job. What really gave her insight was the fact that she had gone through this disease and sympathized a lot with the patient herself. She was most definitely willing to find out more information on the topic and not give up hope.