(DOWNLOAD) "On Learning Humility: A Thirty-Year Journey (Essay)" by The Hastings Center Report # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: On Learning Humility: A Thirty-Year Journey (Essay)
- Author : The Hastings Center Report
- Release Date : January 01, 2004
- Genre: Life Sciences,Books,Science & Nature,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 156 KB
Description
When I returned to Johns Hopkins as an associate professor in 1969, the physician's role was quite paternalistic. The concept of informed consent was just beginning to enter the patient-physician relationship, and the idea of shared decisionmaking had not begun. Parents had responsibility for the surrogate decisionmaking for their child, and the idea that disabled persons have the same rights as everyone else was still new. I had been hired to direct the pediatric neurology division at Johns Hopkins. I was also to run the March of Dimes Birth Defects Clinic which primarily cared for children with spina bifida, a congenital malformation of the spine associated with varying degrees of paralysis of the legs, bladder, and bowels, and often associated with hydrocephalus (water on the brain). During the mid-1960s, newborns affected with spina bifida were sent home or to an institution, typically to die. Children who did not die had treatment begun when they were a year old. As surgical and anesthetic techniques improved, however, surgery for the newborn with spina bifida became increasingly feasible, and John Lorber, of Sheffield, England, showed that early closure of the back to avoid meningitis increased the child's chances of survival. (1)