A recent study of minimally conscious people, using scans to compare the response of normal volunteers and people recovering from PVA, showed that they feel pain. Why does such a study merit the wide reach of Medical News Today?
Because, believe it or not, there are actually medical professionals who believe that it is alright to cause untreated pain in patients as long as they have a rhetorical excuse to do so. In this case, the excuse is that since minimally conscious patients don't report pain in terms that doctors can understand, they must not feel any. Such an assertion is almost academic in its disconnection from the real world. Unfortunately, medicine is not so disconnected. Such self-serving beliefs cause real suffering for real people.
Vulnerable people can always be treated as non-persons by medicine. But, there is no law of nature requiring medicine to do so. It is truly a shame that we must use all of our technology to force medicine to behave decently.
Norman DeLisle, MDRC
"With Liberty and Access for All!"
GrandCentral: 517-589-4081
MDRC Website: http://www.copower.org/
LTC Blog: http://ltcreform.blogspot.com/
Recovery: http://therecoveringlife.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment