In a perfect scenario as it is on television a scholarly physician sits on the bedside, pats the patient’s knee and looks them in the eye and says, “we’ve done all we could”.
I worked in health care for decades, while not in a care role, I went through and managed some of the training programs to improve bedside manner/customer service. I had to document each physician as they spoke with my family member. Because of two of the three experiences they were eager to turn over the bed instead of providing compassionate care
But it really doesn't matter what we think about the robot. It matters what that family thought, and they had a problem with it. To say it's okay is to ignore their voice, because in their specific case, they weren't okay with it. It seems cold and lacking in compassion to not allow even such a simple request for the sake of comfort for someone in such a difficult place.
Really? You really are of the opinion that news about death is just "a few bits of information?" And you are capable of describing the ways humans attempt to be empathic with each other as "these theatrics?"
I'm not sure I want to live in this world. :(
Of course, we can do the be positive, be optimistic, you can fight it, you can do it mantra, and then watch as their heart breaks when they get the diagnosis. Empathy shouldn't mean helping people to delay facing the hard problems and truths.
This is the same world that largely considers suicide a crime, and denies a dignified and conscious end of life to a lot of suffering people. I watched as a family member went through the stages of physiological and mental decline, dementia, muscle atrophy, and eventually even breathing was a full time job, and it became too much. And it was a relatively painless end. (And there were others with different, faster ends. Recently one with cancer.) And taking it for what it is seemed the healthier mindset and approach.
Accepting the inevitable led to those last days and months better spent. And preparing for it is just as important.
We already drag doctors into enough futile quarrels of our own. At least that's my opinion.
I don't want to drag doctors into "futile quarrels." I just think that the occasion of death is special, and deserves to be communicated face to face, not with robots (oh sorry, with iRobots).
So you think we should systematically bring this poor experience to everyone via robots because some human doctors perform the same task poorly?
The blame is on the full device, not just the screen.
Same here. The doctor and hospital should strive to be as human and empathetic as possible given the bad news. Adding an electronic intermediary created distance and adds coldness and the artifice of bureaucracy to the event.
Welcome to 2019, everybody!
Won't somebody _please_ think of the robots!