Dr Posher Orders Vivian example essay topic

In the movie Wit, English literary scholar Vivian Bearing has spent years translating and interpreting the poetry of John Donne. Unfortunately, she is a person who has cultivated her intellect at the expense of her heart. Both colleagues and students view Bearing as a chilly and unfriendly person lost in her private world of words and mysterious thoughts. At the age of 48, she is diagnosed with stage-four metastatic ovarian cancer. Dr. Kelekian wants her to take eight high-dose experimental chemotherapy treatments for eight months.

He warns her that she will need to be 'tough' to rely upon large reserves of inner courage and willpower. Vivian tries to remain tolerant as she suffers through questions and tests from technicians; 'grand rounds,' where she is prodded by medical students and treated like a specimen rather than a human being. Through her whole ordeal she has to face the loneliness of the hospital not to mention of grueling time spent in an isolation ward. She had no visitors, and the hospital was no place for fun.

There is even a part in the movie where Vivian speaks about the dull and tedious hospital atmosphere. Most regrettably, through all of this she is dealing with the terrible side-effects of the chemotherapy; and then the pain of the still spreading cancer. Through several flashbacks we gain insights into Vivian's life: an encounter with her mentor E.M. Ashford, who warns her to spend more time with friends; a special moment as a child with her father, who encourages her delight in words and their elaborate meanings; and several moments with students in need who were not treated compassionately. Although Vivian has used her intellect and her dry wit as a shield to carry her through life, these are of little value in the face of death.

She sees her reliance to concepts and her apathy to others mirrored in the actions of Jason Posher an ambitious clinical fellow working under Dr. Kelekian. He comes in and out of the movie and seems to treat Vivian as "un-human". Throughout the whole movie he asks her "how are you feeling today Vivian", but the way he says it is so unfeeling and cold. At the end of the movie when she is actually dead he asks, it just shows how much doctors really do not have any attachment what so ever to patients in today's medical model. Eventually Vivian realizes that the chemotherapy treatments have failed. She turns to Posner for comfort but he's unable to help.

Late one night, she talks to Susie her nurse, about her fears about death. They share a Popsicle in a precious moment of deep intimacy. Susie carefully raises the subject of the options available should Vivian's heart stop, suggesting she may want to have Dr. Kelekian note her preference on her chart. Vivian chooses to be DNR (Do Not Resuscitate). Later, as Vivian lies in a near coma, Susie tenderly rubs lotion on her hands. Small acts of kindness characterize her caring.

Which just shows how caring and important nurses really are in our hospital environment. At the end of the movie the way nurses are truly treated in the modern medical system is shown when Dr. Posher orders Vivian to be resuscitated even though the nurse exclaims "DNR, do not resuscitate! But none of the staff listens to her, they only listen to the doctor. Finally after a horrid scene of inhumanity the staff leaves and Vivian is put to rest.

In one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the movie, the elderly E.M. Ashford visits her former student who is now heavily sedated with morphine. She asks Vivian if she wants her to recite some poetry by John Donne. "No, no!" Vivian signals, because she is so weak. So Ashford climbs into bed with her, cradling her head in her lap, and reads from the children's classic The Runaway Bunny. In the end, the last moments of life are moments of total modesty. Everything else falls away.

Vivian finds that what she needs most isn't the cold rationality with which she's lived her whole life, it is the care and love she strives so deeply for through to the end of her trauma. She clearly transformed throughout the film, realizing who she really is, and who she could have been..