In my Nursing Capstone class, we are currently
talking about ethics in healthcare. We watched a documentary called The Suicide
Tourist, and these are my reflections written as a class assignment. I would love to hear your thoughts if you
have seen this film or have had similar experiences.
Three main thoughts I brought away from
this film:
1. To live is to
be a part of beauty and tragedy, of happiness and sadness. I believe that the only one who can give hope
to anyone in any circumstance is God. To be a nurse and to so often care for
people as they are born, as they journey through some of the hardest times in
their lives, and as they die is of highest privilege, but it is also to be a
part of such happiness and sadness all the time. I believe to lose a loved one
is one of the greatest pains a human can feel, and to be the one dying, well, I
cannot speak from experience, but I would imagine that without hope in God it
could be sad or depressing or scary. To see a loved one dying or to be the one
dying with a sense of hope and greater purpose than just this life on earth can
bring a sense of peace and hope that goes deeper than human understanding. It
was a very good experience to watch the videos about the two men with ALS. The videos
showed the difference in the way they lived with their disease. To see the
positivity of the man with ALS was a reminder for me as one who will care for
the sick to intend to bring a sense of hope to everyone I care for.
2. Knowing what is
right and wrong in any situation dealing with death is so tricky- it is so
complex and so not easy. I want to have the opinion that as humans we have
autonomy over ourselves—that is if one doesn’t believe that God should be the
only one who gives life and takes life (and I can’t force someone to believe
that)—but then if someone with ALS who is suffering has an estimated some
months or a year to live and wants to kill him or herself, why is it not okay
for a teenager who is depressed and suicidal for him or her to commit suicide?
Who determines what kind of suffering makes it acceptable to kill oneself? And
we are all going to die one day- and no one, not even someone with ALS or
cancer or any terminal disease, knows exactly when they will die. Who
determines that it is okay to kill oneself if he/she only has a certain
estimated time to live? It all gets so fuzzy, and although I want everyone to
have the hope that I have and the belief that God is the only one who gives and
takes life, and that every day he gives us
on this earth is for a purpose and to be used to honor him- I cannot make
anyone believe that, and that is when I have to let them have for themselves
the autonomy over their own life. But if I claim that, then I am saying that I
believe I must let anyone take their own life should they choose to; this is
hard to swallow, but I don’t see another way that makes sense.
3. To lose a loved
one is sad, even for someone who has hope. Even to see someone else, with whom
I may have no relation- such as the family in the first ASL documentary that we
watched, is sad. I think that everyone who experiences loss or sees someone
else experiencing it know that this is true. It is hard to watch people suffer
and it is hard to watch them die, but we must not shy away from these hard
things. It is good to cry, to be sad, to search for answers and to be
challenged. We can find deeper meaning in life and become more whole people
through these experiences. God made life and death the way he did for reasons
not known to me, and he doesn’t make anything bad or make mistakes. Maybe the
sadness and loss we feel can bring us closer to him. I know that that has
happened to me. I believe to be a truly good nurse and to be able to offer
holistic care, we must see and know and experiences all of these aspects of
life, embracing all of the happiness and sadness and everything in between,
being grounded in a faith that goes deeper than circumstances.
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