Savannah Pasculli
November 3, 2014
Cole Valley Christian High School
Unit 7 Ethical Issues Essay

John Doe’s family knows that John does not want to be kept alive artificially which raises an ethical dilemma for the doctors and nurses involved in taking care of John. The doctors are going to want to respect the wishes of John and not keep him alive artificially if that is not what he would want, but it would be very hard for the doctors to let him die if they know there is something they can do to save him. It is the doctors’ obligation to do whatever they can to save their patients, but it is also their obligation to respect the wishes of the family. I think it was okay for the doctors to suggest using the ventilator and at least giving Mr. Doe the chance to recover back from his a coma. They did not keep him on the ventilator for an extremely long time or continue trying things to keep him alive after they saw the ventilator was not doing the trick. I believe the doctors did have a justifiable reason for starting life support, John was not completely dead yet and they wanted to see if there was a chance John could come back and maybe later on not need to be hooked up to life support again after recovering. I believe the doctors took the best course of action for the patient, the family, and for the doctors and nurses themselves. They did a few things to see if he would come out of his a coma and after he didn’t come out of it they respected his wishes by