thesis+Based+Research+Assignment


 * Rationale for Research**

Why did you go down this research path? Since the topic of bioethics is far too broad and has such a limited appeal is be researched successfully, I had to not only narrow the topic down to a few crucial sections, but also focus in on the individual perspective and opinion of the topic. What driving question guided your research? How should scientists redefine the definition of bioethics as their job and values are questioned? What more specific questions had to be answered before finally answering this driving question? While this driving question has not been resolutely answered as of yet, certain things had to be responded to before any research could take place. What is defined as being ‘ethical?’ What about ‘unethical?’ What fields of bioethics will be discussed? What scientists are being discussed?

1) Post, Stephen G., ed. "Death and Dying." __Bioethics for Students, Volume 1__. 17-47 New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA, 1999. a) Brain dead is defined as having a flat electroencephalogram, having a total lack of response to pain, and having a total lack of reflexes (Post 21). b) Four end-of-life decisions can be made terminally; refusal of treatment, withdrawal of treatment, assisted suicide, or euthanasia (Post 31). c) Three models of suicide- medical model, cry-for-help model, and sociogenic model. No suicide is voluntary; it is done as a result of uncontrollable outside events. Religious perspective of suicide- Judaism never prohibits suicide while Christianity treats it as a sin (Post 41-42). d) Court cases- //Tucker v. Lower// made rulings on brain dead vs. physiologically dead, California cases discussed organ donors and end-of-life rights, 1981 standard declared that legally dead is having an irreversible stop of circulation or the brain and brain stem cease all functions (Post 24). e) “’Death is un-American,’ the British historian Arnold Toynbee remarked” (Post 27). f) Living Wills- A document that directs that medical treatment should stop if the patient becomes vegetative (Post 36). g) Author’s opinion- While trying to maintain neutrality, the editor seems to argue in favor of living wills and end-of-life practices. 2) Post, Stephen G., ed. "Ethics and Law." __Bioethics for Students, Volume 1__. 87-117 New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA, 1999. a) Autonomy is the basic concept that every person has the capacity to determine their own fate, an ability that deserves respect and encouragement (Post 87) b) Three elements required from autonomy; Agency, the knowing of one’s own desires and intentions with the motivation to act on them, Independence, the state of being free from all outside influences and forces, and rational decision making, which is having beliefs that can be made evident, being able to act on intention, being able to construct alternative actions, being able to adjust decisions if beliefs change, and being able to rank beliefs in order of importance (Post 87). c) Religion can sometimes interfere with autonomy, as with the Church of Christ Scientist, a faith in which illness is thought to be cured by faith. Legally, the church is held responsible if a person dies under their care whilst refusing medical service (Post 88). d) Hippocratic Oath- ratified at the second Geneva Convention in 1948 and is a code for all medical professionals (Post 91). e) Two terms regarding care of elderly have lost their meaning in the past several years; hospitality and sympathy. Hospitality has been taken to not be related to health care while sympathy has been turned into a show of pity (Post 93). f) Under the provisions of the AMA’s Code of Ethics, doctors should not place their own opinions in diagnoses, treatment options, or the decision-making process (Post 107). 3) Post, Stephen G., ed. "Mental Health." __Bioethics for Students, Volume 2__. 63-90 New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA, 1999. a) Originally, patients deemed unfit for treatment were either lobotomized or simply abused (Post 63-64). b) The term ‘mentally competent’ has changed over the years as treatments, politics, and the understanding of mental health has changed (Post 67-68) c) Due to recent court rulings, mentally unfit patients may not make any end-of-life decisions, even with consent (Post 75). 4) Post, Stephen G., ed. "Professional-Patient Issues" __Bioethics for Students, Volume 2__. 131-189 New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA, 1999. a) By the sixth century, many hospitals were established based on religion; Christian and Islamic were major benefactors (Post 135). i) Christian hospitals were made for the poor, but as medical technology made advancements, the free care provided often outranked the private doctors favored by the wealthy (Post 135). ii) Islamic Hospitals were a mark of piety that helped all who sought it. Gradually, they developed sections for physical ailment and mental ailment (post 135). b) In 1910, a revolution in medicine occurred. The “scientific hospital was created. Surgery and end-of-life practices became acceptable and were well regulated by outside consultants (Post 138). c) Medical Oaths were developed from prayers recited by religious doctors, than; the //Charaka Samhita// was developed in India. This became the Hippocratic Oath, which is now universally practiced by modern medical professionals (Post 141-142) d) “Prolongation of life should not be the aim of medicine. Health is the aim of medicine.” (Post 153). e) Patients Ethical Codes are now being developed to regulate the doctor and ensure responsibility between both parties (Post 170-171). i) The AMA has drawn up a list that all patients should attend to while under a doctors care. Some of these duties include disclosing previous medical history, voice their own opinions in regards to treatment, and to remain active in participation, treatment, and diagnosis. (Post 176). 5) Post, Stephen G., ed. "Therapies." __Bioethics for Students, Volume 3__. 178-188 New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA, 1999. a) “The central ethical question raised by alternative therapies is whether they are genuine medical treatments or…deliberate attempts to deceive or defraud a trusting patient” (Post 184) b) The line of distinction is drawn between unconventional and unnecessary (Post 178). c) The dilemma in bioethics is whether or not these therapies and experiments are being conducted for the good of humanity or for simple curiosity (Post 179) d) Risks attached to gene therapy include unpredictable mutations, the “line” being drawn at any arbitrary point, and, of course, the ethical risks of manipulating the gene (Post 10-11) e) The dilemma in hospice therapy is killing vs. Letting Die. Hospices currently support a patient’s decision to die by lack of treatment (Post 14-15). 6) Post, Stephen G., ed. "Research." __Bioethics for Students, Volume 3__. 61-79 New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA, 1999. a) Patenting organisms is thought by some to be an objection of technology and genetics (Post 77) b) Another concern is the patents’ influence on research procedures. Patenting living organisms or experiment results can slow research by keeping methods shrouded in secrecy (Post 78). c) Further complaints with patenting organisms cite the value of the research in question. The financial burdens of conducting expensive genetic or organic research are huge and can have massive repercussions on scientists and citizens alike (Post 78). d) In a broader spectrum, many critics of this practice argue that patenting life-forms “promotes an unhealthy, disrespectful, or materialistic view of life” (Post 78). i) Hybrids, such as the infamous “ear-mouse”, are called a threat to human dignity (Post 78). 7) Post, Stephen G., ed. "Medical Codes and Oaths." __Bioethics for Students, Volume 4__. 161-187 New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA, 1999. a) Vacco v. Quill and Washington v. Glucksberg- Supreme Court case giving the state of Washington the right to allow physicians to conduct voluntary euthanasia b) 1980 Principles of Medical Ethics cites; “…compassion and respect for human dignity…advance scientific knowledge” (Post 164-165). c) The Declaration of Helsinki declares that “In the purely scientific application of medical research carried out on a human being, it is the duty of the physician to remain the protector of the life and health of that person on whom biomedical research is being carried out (Post 184). 8) Morris, Jonathan. “The Ethics of Biotechnology.” __Biotechnology in the 21st Century__. New York City, NY: Chelsea House Publishers, 2006. a) The term ‘bioethics’ was introduced and discussed in 1971 by Van Renessalaer Potter, a professor of oncology at the University of Wisconsin (Morris 20). i) At the time, it was being applied to the ethics related to “the survival and the improvement of human life” (Morris 20). ii) In modern day, bioethics is applied to the wide array of experiments and practices that call ethics or morality into question (Morris 22). b) In the past, bioethics was applied to things such as DNA research and genome experimentation. Today, hundreds of things like cloning, euthanasia and stem cell research can be applied (Morris 24).
 * Research**


 * Thesis**

Based on this research what is your specific stance on this topic? As evident by the wording of my thesis, I am taking the stance of a humanist approach. Research should be conducted for the good of humanity and certain therapies are essential to the well-being of mankind. What is your initial thesis? While steeped in controversy, medical professionals should not compromise the humanitarian and moral aspects of their job by refusing to conduct practices such as stem cell research, cloning and end-of-life consultation.


 * Findings & Support for Findings**

1. Many scientists believe that stem cell research and cloning is a boon for humanity. a. 2c, 5d, 6a, 6b, 6c, 6d, 7b, 7c 2. Bioethics, though a concept new to science, has been a question to medical professionals for years to come. a. 1e, 2a, 2b, 2d, 2e, 2f, 3a, 3b, 3c, 4a, 4b, 4c, 4d, 4e, 4f, 4g, 4h, 4i, 7a, 8a, 8b 3. Recent Supreme Court cases have ruled in favor of the humanist approach to bioethics. a. 1d, 3c, 7a 4. If end-of-life treatments are discussed on a patient-doctor level, many patients are in favor of these options. a. 1b, 1c, 1f, 4d, 4e, 5e, 4i, 5. While the ‘line’ is a completely arbitrary, scientists and doctors respect and honor the sanctity of human life. a. 2a, 2b, 3b, 3c, 5a, 5b, 5c, 5d, 6c, 6d


 * Process Reflection**

What did you learn from conducting this research? Not only did I learn a great deal about the topic of bioethics and its long history, I definitely learned the value of time management and to appreciate all the work Dr. Valenza does in advance for our senior theses. What higher-order thinking skills did you employ? For this research assignment, I used analysis since the information was already presented to me; I just needed to make the connections to findings and the bigger picture. While I did synthesize some information in order to make the necessary connections, analysis skills were crucial to this activity. What research skills do you need to improve? I feel like I need to improve my ability to cherry-pick key points or crucial information without delving in depth into the article. Also, I need to broaden the types of research I used. For this, I only used books. What information did you think you knew before researching that turned out to be either incorrect or incomplete knowledge of your topic? The good thing about being almost completely ignorant to a topic before choosing it is that you don’t feel //as// stupid when you find out something unexpected or new. This was the case for cloning and stem-cell research, as I’ve never actually read into the topic in depth prior to this assignment. Euthanasia, however, did know about and I guess the biggest surprise came to me during my research on hospices and how accommodating they are towards end-of-life requests.


 * Connections to the Overall Project**

So what? How do your findings fit back into the big picture of your project? These five findings, while only the tip of the iceberg that is bioethics, do give me a fairly good idea of the history of bioethics, where bioethics are today, and what scientists and the nation have felt towards these types of practices in the past several decades. With this information, I can finalize a project idea and begin a paper regarding the topic at hand. How will this research help you move forward with your project? From here, I can now begin setting up provisions for conducting my project idea and I now have the basis to start what will become my final research paper which I turn in for a grade.