Ethical Treatment of Dying Patients

Dignity in Dying

When people find out that I want to work with Hospice and dying patients I hear all types of responses such as “That must be depressing” or “I could never do that”. It is difficult for many people to understand how I do not view this work as morbid or painful but rather as an honor to be part of the last stage of an individual’s life journey.  I feel that each person has their unique life story and regardless of the joy or pain that each tale holds; at the end of life every individual is deserving of having their personal narrative acknowledged in recognition of their inherent human worth. In other words, my purpose in being involved in this vocation is to help facilitate a sense of dignity in dying with each patient I work with.

The purpose of this blog is an attempt to explain what dignity in dying (or “a good death”) means and to examine the ethical principals involved in working towards this goal with the terminally ill. I will look at the primary ethical consideration of respecting the dignity and worth of all people, and the external factors that influence dignity will be examined as frameworks for providing quality end-of-life care. The importance of communication as a requirement for maintaining a “caring conversation” in an ethical context is another topic I plan to address. Additionally, the philosophy of palliative care and the goals of Hospice as an approach to meet the medical, psychosocial, and spiritual needs of patients will be presented.

Through this blog I hope to show that the ethical aspiration of providing a sense of dignity to terminally ill patients at the end-of-life provides a climate for them to maintain their sense of themselves as an individual and to come to terms with their impending death (Jacelon & Proulx). More importantly, dying with dignity allows others to perceive a dying person to be as fully human as they are. This serves as a powerful reminder that life has the potential to be meaningful under all conditions: work, joy, suffering, and death. “Morally and spiritually, the insistent claim to dying with dignity points to something in humans that is genuinely transcendent, something that reflects our freedom to call into question all social roles and to say out loud that we are more than our frailty, role performance, or buying power”(Jacelon & Proulx, 2004, p.117). For all those involved in the experience of a “good death”, the opportunity is presented to realize what that “more” is; not only for the patient, but for themselves.

 

References

Jacelon, C. & Proulx, K. (2004). Dying with dignity: The good patient versus the good death.
             American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, 21(2), 116-120.