Trust the Nurse
Last week instead of the usual ethics class we were offered a chance to see a dramatic reading of the play Miss Evers’ Boys. The play was presented by the U of M’s medical school, the Center for Arts and Medicine, and the Guthrie Theater. It was performed in one of the big med school auditoriums is the Phillips-Wangensteen building. Do you know the ones I am talking about? With the vertical wood slats on every wall making it look very 1970s and cozy? The audience consisted of nursing and med students, a few faculty, and interestingly, some folks from MPR’s All Things Considered! I have yet to look for it, but apparently they covered the event and included some interviews from students. Sadly, I declined an interview out of shyness. That could have been my 15 minutes!
In case you are unaware of the play, Miss Evers’ Boys tells the inexcusable story of The Tuskegee Experiment. It focuses on the lives of the men in Macon County, Alabama who were recruited by a Nurse Evers to participate in the study of untreated syphilis on African-American men. What makes this play so important for future health care professionals, especially nurses, is not only the ethical issues surrounding honesty or human subjects but the trust that these men put into Miss Evers. They believed in her as a nurse to have their best interest in mind. The story tells the progression they made, the men not realizing the truth of their involvement in the study, the nurse slowly realizing how integral a part she played in keeping the men in a study that was not in their best interest.
Afterwards, a question was posed by the actors – could this story, this study, happen today? The responses from the crowd (along with my own sentiments) went something like this: The inherently unequal administration of heath care has not changed but has instead become global. We might like to think that we, as a culture, are above this sort of thing now. It was only in 1997 that President Bill Clinton finally made an official apology to the men misused by the study. The fact is that the valuing of certain lives over others has not changed. The reason why we do not see such atrocities here in the US is because these affairs are now conducted in other countries, on people we do not generally know about. When a country does not have the legal framework to regulate research, what ethical guidelines or fundamental human rights are scientists or companies to be held to?
How different is Uganda from Tuskegee?
It is not a matter of if or when, but where it is happening now. Who do we value more than others? What does care mean for the patient? As future nurses we need to address our own assumptions and prejudices. The more we can communicate on a human level – talk from one human to another instead of from a position of authority - the harder it will be for us to see people as means to an end. This is where the unique position of a nurse fits in really well. I believe that nursing is inherently on the human level, on the patient’s side, helping the patient navigate and live through their experience in the medical world and come through it still a whole person.
There are so many subtle choices. How can you give the best care?
In case you are unaware of the play, Miss Evers’ Boys tells the inexcusable story of The Tuskegee Experiment. It focuses on the lives of the men in Macon County, Alabama who were recruited by a Nurse Evers to participate in the study of untreated syphilis on African-American men. What makes this play so important for future health care professionals, especially nurses, is not only the ethical issues surrounding honesty or human subjects but the trust that these men put into Miss Evers. They believed in her as a nurse to have their best interest in mind. The story tells the progression they made, the men not realizing the truth of their involvement in the study, the nurse slowly realizing how integral a part she played in keeping the men in a study that was not in their best interest.
Afterwards, a question was posed by the actors – could this story, this study, happen today? The responses from the crowd (along with my own sentiments) went something like this: The inherently unequal administration of heath care has not changed but has instead become global. We might like to think that we, as a culture, are above this sort of thing now. It was only in 1997 that President Bill Clinton finally made an official apology to the men misused by the study. The fact is that the valuing of certain lives over others has not changed. The reason why we do not see such atrocities here in the US is because these affairs are now conducted in other countries, on people we do not generally know about. When a country does not have the legal framework to regulate research, what ethical guidelines or fundamental human rights are scientists or companies to be held to?
How different is Uganda from Tuskegee?
It is not a matter of if or when, but where it is happening now. Who do we value more than others? What does care mean for the patient? As future nurses we need to address our own assumptions and prejudices. The more we can communicate on a human level – talk from one human to another instead of from a position of authority - the harder it will be for us to see people as means to an end. This is where the unique position of a nurse fits in really well. I believe that nursing is inherently on the human level, on the patient’s side, helping the patient navigate and live through their experience in the medical world and come through it still a whole person.
There are so many subtle choices. How can you give the best care?
posted by momo at
10:51 PM
1 Comments:
I hope that you, my dear, are my nurse every time I walk into an exam room. Well, that would probably get pretty expensive to have you on retainer 24-7, but I certainly do hope that every nurse I ever encounter has a heart as warm and a spirit as honest and humble as yours surely is when you are serving your patients. I know that it is a bit over-reaching to expect I'll never encounter a bad egg, but I want you to know that I think you're making the world a better place. I'm glad you blog about your ethical encounters and discussions as a nurse - Kudos to you, love.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home