Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Experimental drugs; Elders (Posted for Awad)


Posted for Awad Awad
An adequate approach for FDA to establish a successful pathway for terminal ill patients to have an access to experimental drugs
    FDA should establish a committee containing doctors, lawyers, religious representatives, and family members to assist terminal ill patient in process of forming his/ her decision to use the experimental drug. Each group of the professions in the committee should be able to help the patient know about his status and rights. For example, doctors will help the patient to form a clear view of the risks of using the experimental drug, and the damages that the drug may cause to the patient’s health and quality of life. Furthermore, the lawyers should assist the patient in his legal problems such as if he/ she dies after using the drug or goes into a comma, and the layer should protect what the patient desire if he / she goes into a comma or dies. Religious representatives of the patient’s faith if he has any and a family members have a similar role in aiding the patient emotionally, and also in the process of making important decisions such as after he/ she goes into a comma what they should do for him/ her. Libertarian and utilitarian are the two main ideologies, the FDA needs to ensure that patient can use to make his/her decisions. The patient should always have the important voice in the matter of his/ her life or death decisions, and the type of care he / she should receive. They also should choose if they want to trade off comfort for extension of life or vice versa. The committee goal is to assist the patient to make important decision and never to make them for the patient unless he/ she is unable to decide for himself/herself due to a disease, a disorder or an accident.    

Dependence and independence for Elders

As the book “Being Moral” describes characters in chapter three that each individual has 

a story where he/she favored a place that provided him/ her with a sense of independence and 

allowed them to obtain a life as close to their typical life. For elder patients, a nursing home, 

hospice should not represents to them a place of exile where they must denounce all of the 

activities and habits that bring them joy for the name safety. The society expects the elder to 

abide by rules that takes away their voices in what their life should be like. These creates a 

culture inside nursing home and hospice that ignores the elders’ demands and desires in the name 

of safety and longevity of the elders’ life than the quality of the time they spend inside a hospice 

An easy solution to this issue to start customizing the life an elder wishes to have. For 

example nursing should allow elders to customize their room and their food. Elders should be 

encouraged to explorer life rather than hide behind the wall of nursing home or hospice. They 

should be allow every month to leave nursing home and hospice to visit her family or go on 

picnic with her or mates at the nursing home or hospice. These are small changes to the culture 

of nursing home that would not cost a lot’ however, they will have appositive outcomes on the 

quality of life of the elders inside nursing homes.

3 comments:

  1. I couldn't open your second attachment, Awad. A slideshow?

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  2. This FDA panel's 'religious representatives": if they rotate depending on the religious affiliation of the terminal patient, does that mean that atheists and humanists are presumed to desire or benefit from no form of spiritual counseling? Or shall we include atheists and humanists on the committee? (Wouldn't THAT be progressive! Count me in!!)

    Power to the elders, right on!

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  3. I think addinga variety of different people would be awesome! It will make solutions in the future more probable and I'm wondering which ones would be the "best" convincers if they were to bring up an ide ato let elderly people have medcine that's fresh out ofo testing or still under testing.

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