Bitching about doctors

[onyxflame]

So there was this thing on the news today about a woman who had a stroke and has spent the last 6 years in what the doctors call a persistent vegitative state. And then she woke up. The doctors don't know why or how and were quoted as saying this was a "mystical" event. She's perfectly lucid and able to talk and stuff, though

Comments

[reliantfc3]

I'm still not sure how I feel on Terry Schivo either. I do agree that starving a person to death can't be humane. There are certainly things that we don't understand.

[nerwengreen]

I'm all in favor of euthanasia for situations like those. Our pets get to die quickly and painlessly, why not our loved human ones too?

As for Terry Schiavo, as I understood the news reports, the doctors were pretty much all in agreement and it was just her parents that were unwilling to accept it. The autopsy afterward was pretty conclusive; they made the right decision.

[onyxflame]

I remember there being at least 2 factions of doctors who disagreed on what the brain scans meant. Although I'm not sure whether any neutral doctors thought she could possibly wake up, or if it was just her doctor, who may have had some serious wishful thinking going on there. However, I think we don't really know enough about the brain to tell for sure what most brain scans mean in any situation, as witnessed by how surprised the doctors all were when the other woman regained consciousness.

I think it's situations like this that make it really apparent that we should all have a living will. I wouldn't have bitched nearly as much if there was something official stating that she didn't want to be kept alive like that, rather than just the word of her husband. Euthanasia would save a lot of grief & medical costs, BUT it all depends on what the patient wants, and there'd have to be strict rules so that someone with a beef against the person couldn't just say "oh she wanted to die (heh heh heh)".