General course reflection

You, the student

• Are you an engaged learner? 
• Reflect on your experience in this class.  How can you be a more active participant in class? 
• What are you learning about yourself as a student?  Are you willing to work hard at your studies?  What if you won’t be directly rewarded by that work?

Learning across disciplines

• Reflect on your experiences in other classes this term.  How are your current classes (and ones from the past) combining?  What are you learning from the intersections of those disciplines?

Generally 

• why are you in school?  Specifically, why are you in this class?

Who is the unit of care?

Is it the patient herself?  The family + patient?  What does "family" mean?

Hospice Care

What is hospice care?  What must happen in order for a patient to enter hospice care?  What services does hospice offer to a patient? 

Hospice sees family + patient as the unit of care.  Please comment on the value/wisdom/difficulty of such an orientation.

Futile Treatment

What is futile treatment?  How is it defined?  How do we know when a treatment is futile? Who gets to make that decision?

Does a patient have the *right* to any care?  Does a patient have the right to futile treatment?
Relatedly, should a doctor/medical professional/medical team be able to refuse to treat a patient, if there is no effective treatment (meaning only futile) to offer.

To complicate these questions, please think very hard about what counts as "treatment" and what medical staff can offer to patients even if there isn't curative or interventionist treatment to offer.  This will relate to another post on hospice care.

Rights

We've talked about positive (welfare) and negative (barrier) rights.  Is PAS more like a positive right or a negative right?  OR, if you think it isn't a right at all, explain.

Plato/Aristotle

Comments, questions, observations?

Current Events Mar/Apr

*new*  20Apr11
The Obama administration wants legislation requiring training for doctors who prescribe powerful painkillers. http://nyti.ms/gY8E8k --> relevant to control of drugs and treating pain especially in end of life situations.

this is exactly why we're in this class
http://letters.mobile.salon.com/mwt/feature/2011/04/05/shark_teeth_from_a_dying_man_open2011/view/index3.html?show=all


Short essay about how things can represent a dead person.
http://mobile.salon.com/mwt/feature/2011/03/23/my_fathers_stuff_in_the_garage_open2011/index.html

Frontline video The Suicide Tourist

http://video.pbs.org/video/1430431984?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=PBS

Japan

14Mar11 An op-ed about Japan's "Day of Disaster"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/opinion/14iht-edmakihara14.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=suicide%20on%20campus&st=cse

Please post other stories, information, and reflections.

Maps & Graphics
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/flash/newsgraphics/2011/0311-japan-earthquake-map/index.html?hp

How to Help
http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html 

Euthanasia, Physician-Assisted Suicide

You can start this thread by commenting on whether or not you think PAS should be a legal option for those who would choose it.  Explain your reasoning.

Suicide

There is lots to discuss regarding suicide, so let's make a separate post for physician-assisted suicide.  In the meantime, here's the link to a video about suicides on college campuses, which we'll watch in class on Thursday 17 March.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2007/10/10/magazine/1194817120290/suicide-on-campus.html?scp=1&sq=suicide%20on%20campus&st=cse

Descartes

Is Descartes right?  Are we just thinking things?  Or is there more to us?  Explain.

The Diving Bell & The Butterfly

Class,
Please comment further on the film.  Does it make you reconsider anything?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401383/

FYI:  A more extended essay about the story and the difference between the book and the film.
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2008/02/23/diving_bell

Chaplains

Was it helpful/interesting to have the chaplains come to class?  Anything else you'd like to have asked them?

Current Events Feb/Mar

Several news stories related to class, some more serious than others, one's quite bizarre:
1. From The New York Times:  "A Life’s Value May Depend on Agency"
Agencies that calculate the worth of a life have been raising the number, which affects how much the government should spend to prevent a single death.
http://nyti.ms/gCjwiz 

2. From The New York Times:  OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR: Grief, Unedited
Most older people who lose spouses from natural causes recover much more quickly than we have come to expect.
http://nyti.ms/i9CYhe

3. From The New York Times:  BOOKS OF THE TIMES: The Shock Of Losing A Spouse
In “A Widow’s Story” Joyce Carol Oates reflects on the pain of losing her husband after nearly 48 years of marriage.
http://nyti.ms/gmXP3C

4. http://mobile.salon.com/mwt/feature/2011/02/12/truth_about_grief_qa/index.html


5. From The New York Times:  "Assisting Suicide to Be Focus of Trial in Motivational Speaker’s Death"
A defendant who is about to go on trial told the police that, for a payment, he had held a knife as a stranger thrust himself at it.
http://nyti.ms/huHnbQ

6.  14Mar11 Helping doctors help the dying.  http://blogs.hbr.org/innovations-in-health-care/2011/03/-the-stuff-i-do.html

Death as subject in Music

A variety of sources and actual songs about death:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_ballad
* "On the Banks of the Ohio"   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C3r9PnoNTw


* Not a murder ballad, but a famous song about death, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bRJLkNqNXI

Feel free to post others here, of whatever musical genre.

Violent Video Games

(Do you need more of a prompt?).  If you are referencing a particular game, would you please give a brief description of it.

Freud & Football (weeks 4-5)

Class,
Thoughts/observations about Freud with respect to the Superbowl, advertising during & around the Superbowl, forces of aggression & sex?

Medical guests follow-up

Do you have any questions arising from our guests' visit on Tuesday (1 Feb)?  Did they help you understand some issue/question better?  Do you think it is important/relevant to hear from medical personnel when trying to determine what you think the appropriate definition of death is?  Explain.

Freud (week 4-5)

Was Freud right?  About what?  Assume he was right about some major issue (e.g., causes of anxiety, stages of childhood development, psychological structure):  how does that impact death & dying?  According to Freud, are we psychologically capable of understanding our own death?

Medieval Christian Worldview (Week 4)

Comments on this worldview?    In what major ways does that worldview clash with our modern, Western worldview?  How is dying represented in each?

History of Death

What was surprising to you in this chapter?  Does having some idea about our history help you to make more sense out of our current practices surrounding death & dying in the U.S.?

Definition of Death

Does anyone have any follow-up to this discussion?  We didn't get to talk very thoroughly in class about it, but I know you wrote great papers, so perhaps you don't need further discussion?

Your Education (2nd week)

Find a prompt below which speaks to you and comment on it:
1. Reflect on your expectations for this class. How might you be able to contribute to class discussion? How could you be well prepared? How can you be an active participant in class? Active participant on-line?
2. Consider the other classes in your fall schedule. Where do they overlap? Do you expect to get more out of certain classes because you are taking them at the same time as other classes?
3. What experiences in your life do you anticipate impacting your interest in this course? Do you have any suggestions to link your life experiences with course material/topics?
4. At this point, what are your general thoughts about human nature?
5. Generally, why are you in school? Specifically, why are you in this class? Do you think you would take more philosophy if money/time weren't factors? Explain.
6. What are you learning (in this class or others) about yourself as a student? Are you willing to work hard at your studies? Why? What motivates you?

What is philosophy? (2nd Week)

After reading the introduction to Barry and Stephenson & Haberman, discuss: What is philosophical thinking? Why is it valuable? Why is it difficult?

Current Events Jan/Feb 2011

Archived links, summaries, commentaries for current events related to death & dying during January & February 2011.