Quality In Life example essay topic

In this day and age of medical technology the right to die is a difficult journey to walk. The quality of life should play a major decision in the right to die. It is not only going to affect everyone around you, but it will affect you and the person you are deciding for. Everyday when I walk into work I think to myself, "who will I watch walk out of this place, who am I going to watch suffer, and who am I going to watch die?" I know it is a morbid subject to think of, but I work at a hospital on a critical care floor and I see things I never thought I would see at my age or even in my life. I am a nursing assistant and I take care of people, not only because it is my job, but because I love the fact of taking care of someone.

Prior to working at the hospital, I've always thought that no one should want to die or not want someone to help them so they will not die. When I started working, it made me think differently, keeping someone alive just because you cannot let them go or it would be too hard to accept. Now I think, why keep them suffering and going through life not knowing which way they are going to go. If they are lying in bed not knowing who they are or what is going on, is that quality of life? They no longer have the choice of letting go and going where they want to go". '... which of the thousand voices of conscience is the voice of God.

' It is not ultimately one's conscience but before God that one is responsible". Canal B. Daly People request in their Living Will not to be resuscitated. Yes, we should go by what they want, but then, we as family members get to selfish and decide to change the patient's wishes because we can. Families and doctors can overrule the Living Will if you are not able to decide for yourself. When you think about it, do you want that? Do you want to watch someone you love suffer and have no quality of life?

Families and doctors should not make decisions for someone who chooses not to go on without quality of life. I know I would not, because I see it everyday and it is not fair to the one's we love. "The one thing we cannot do, without stunting ourselves, is to allow another to make our conscientious judgment for us". Eileen Egan Doctors do what they can to make their patient's lives healthier. This is their job and that is what they have been educated to do.

I've seen patients pull through something that you never would have thought they could. This makes me think, if they pulled through, wouldn't someone else who was just as bad pulled through? No one knows, I know I do not, but I know I have seen it happen. Sometimes I get so close to my patients, I cry to see them go home, I cry when they go back to the nursing home, and I cry when they die.

I have even gone to the calling hours of the deceased patients, to see what they used to look like and talk to their family to hear what a great person they were. I knew someone so healthy, beautiful, caring, and loveable go from happy to lying in a bed suffering from a terminal illness. She was the mother of my best friend, so I knew I could do something to help. I promised myself I would go to her house and not cry, though it hurt to see her that way, because I knew how much she hated to be seen like that.

She was the strong one, she was the one to wipe away her kids' tears, and here we were wiping away her tears. I did not do this out of pity, nor did I do it because I felt bad, I did it because I wanted to and maybe that is why God put me on this earth. He chose me to help ones who needed help. She chose not to be resuscitated because she knew she would never be the same and have no quality in life. Her family honored her wishes. As much as it hurt to see her go, we all knew it was for the best.

When she left us, I finally cried and hurt, but I keep thinking she is happy now, not suffering and does not have any pain. She is now watching over us, knowing we all did everything we possibly could to make her happy. In difficult circumstances, we may all have to make some very hard decisions that will affect us, possibly for the rest of our lives. Who are we to take away someone's right to die?

Don't we want the people we love to have quality of life? This is something that changed the way I think and understand living and dying, and how to choose which one we do.