Custom essays on Ethical Principle: Should the doctor administer the morphine or not?

Should the doctor administer the morphine or not?
The “pro” arguments.
Control of pain and other symptoms of cancer is one of the priorities in the fight against cancer and active supportive care, that is the only real help and an expression of humanism in relation to many cancer patients. In this regard, dissemination and application of existing knowledge in the fight against pain and other symptoms of the disease will at most make life easier for patients.
Among the patients with cancer very often progression of disease leads to the development of a number of painful symptoms requiring assistance, and also require symptomatic treatment, facilitating the most distressing symptoms of the disease. Pain minimizes the limited resources of the patient’s organism, and administering of morphine is not only reducing the suffering of the patient, but also create optimal conditions for the remaining period of life.
Ethical aspects of care these patients aimed at helping them to live without great sufferings. That is why some doctors can decide to use morphine to help patients, though this medicine is prohibited to be used in general cases. That is why such a doctor’s decision is based on moral aspects and touches medical ethics problems.
In the case of Dr. Robinson and his patient Mr. Mills, the goal of treatment of pain with morphine is to limit patient’s sufferings in recent months and the remaining days of his life.
The arguments against
Most doctors are of the opinion that the drugs are the most effective means to combat pain. Why do not they always prescribe them even in cases when patients suffer from severe pain? To answer this question we need to understand how drugs act in human organism. Drugs are blocking the signals of the spinal cord about pain, and pain occurs. It would seem that the benefits of the use of morphine and other drugs in surgical practice is proved. But there is another danger: even a small dose of drugs can lead to physiological dependence of the patient from these substances.
Particularly tightly use of drugs in the treatment is regulated in the U.S.: it requires not only a special license, but the medical examination. Often doctors have to choose between drugs, and risk of mental disorder in the patient – whether it addictive and irresistible attraction to the drug or the desire to commit suicide because of unbearable long pain.

Conclusion
There are some ethical issues associated with individual and community judgments about appropriate behavior in the field of medicine, and use of drugs to fight with pain is one of them. The fact is that this and other questions of medical ethics do not have only one true response.
Society and the doctors themselves often do not know exactly “what is good and what is bad.” Today we understand that the accuracy of any answers is relative, as we more and more get acquainted with different religions and cultures, with the widest spectrum of views.

References:
Boyle, Joseph. “Who is entitled to Double Effect?,” The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, № 16. 1991. Pp. 475–494.
Cavanaugh, T.A. “Double-Effect Reasoning: Doing Good and Avoiding Evil”. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006.
Garcia, Jorge. “Double Effect”. Encyclopedia of Bioethics.New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1995. pp. 636–641
Klein W. & J. “The Story of Bioethics: From seminal works to contemporary explorations”. Georgetown University Press, 2003
LaFollette, H. “Ethics in practice: an anthology”. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002
Woodward, P. A. “The Doctrine of Double Effect: Philosophers Debate a Controversial Moral Principle”. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001.