let us say, tough decisions!

[Hour_Glass]

Hi there friends,
miss you all

let us say there is a drug addict who use IV injections and as you know these people doesn't care and they will use the same needle twice or even ten times ! or even share needles with other people so let us say you are a doctor and you met one of those people who you know will not stop his addiction my question will you offer this person a clean syringe (disposable) so he can abuse drugs or you leave him using the used needle...?
before answering keep in mind two things 1.you will protct this person from getting hepatitis and AIDS that he might catch from using shared needles and 2.this person have no will to quit addiction
please after making your decision i would like to hear your point of view about your choice (i.e justify your decision)

thanx in advance
Farah Baha

[ali al-kafaji]

hi farah, how are u doing?
well if i can't tell the cops or sent him in rehab.,then i will choose not to give him a new needle cause if he dose not want to quite then his life is worthless and he is killing his self slowly and he is gonna die any how,so let him die from hapatitis or hiv it dose not matter to me.

ali

[hammodi]

i'd give this patient clean syringes (if i'm allowed to, maybe the hospital i'm working in wouldn't accept such behaviour or maybe they encourage it) but that's not all, i'll try to make him/her go to rehap or sth. anyway, if i failed, i'd still give the clean syringes coz i think the job of the doctor is to prevent illness and treat patients even to such people, we don't make choices for people, we just give them their options and go with what they decide. and most important, we don't punish patients just because we think they're wrongdoers.

i think this is similar to giving condoms to sexually active teens or doing abortion for a woman who otherwise will have the abortion done by unspecialized person and may end up dying from a sepsis. if you refuse to do these things, you're punishing people because they don't believe in your high values.

smiles

[m7md7atem]

I would give him/her clean syringes even if that's not allowed...
It's my duty as a doctor to prolong any patient's life and enhance it by all means..

[realmadrid]

I'm completely with m7md7atem opinion cuz our job is to prolong life as long as we could (ofcourse with God help) even if the patient's life is worthless.
So i'll give him new syringe.

[Kademad]

When you give him new syringes, u surrender to the fact that he'll use drugs anyway and since you want him to use it the safest possible way, you'll give him new syringes...

But that's an easy, yet a counterable example, u may actually get to be in such a situation... but according to the principle, in my opinion it's quite similar to this virtual one:

Say you have an amount of high quality drugs, and u know an addict who uses backstreet drugs which are usually mixed with very dangerous substances...

When you said YES to the first example, your aim was that since he'll use drugs anyway, let him use it safely...
So would u give him an amount of the good drug? it's safer, and it certianly goes with the principle u agreed with earlier?
I guess not... you'd probably say no to my question... which is just a magnified version of the first one


If I may encounter such a patient, I'll persuade him to stick around as long as possible till I report the authorities about him, it's for his best interest... even if he ends up in jail, he won't end up dying in some dark street, and in jail he'd probably receive the care he needs.



Thanks for the topic Farah, and welcome back.... we missed you.

[cytotoxic]

Hi
NICE TOPIC
i guess i would say Yes for Farah example and No for Kadhum's one,yet they look similar in away or another...
For the syrange one , if i didn't give him , he will just continue addicting with risk of HIV or hepatitis ; if i did give , he will continue addicting with decreased risk of infection ...
But for the drugs one , I will be like a drug dealer providing better species of drugs which is far away from the "saving "purpose of giving clean syrange ..
I hope u got me ...
TY all

[Hour_Glass]

Hi there,
thank you all for answering ,and thanx Ali ,Kadhum for welcomingi

now i wanna explain the aim of this question ....as we get older the wildness of youth start to be replaced by wisdom(i wish that's true ) i think we come to realize that most of our life battles will not end by pure victory or complete defete it is always an entity in between ....so the purpose of this question is can you handle it to take tough decision so you can achieve partial victory or you are still in the phase in which the wildness of youth still winning (all or none law)in which either the patient will quit drug addiction or let him catch infection ,infect other and i do not care....
and i think if we settle with partial victories we will end up in some sort of victory
for Kadhum your question is similar to mine in the principle but i prefer to judge each case alone cause such cases needs weighing benefits Vs bad outcomes
i.e. each case will be judged individually .
the last thing to say here i really like you all to think like this (if we can not achieve pure victory let us try for partial victory it is better than nothing)

thanx for sharing
Farah Baha