Ethic Soup

Dear God Please Send Me Somebody Who Will Care: A Stray Cat's Prayer

A Stray Cat's Prayer

Dear God, please send me somebody who'll care!

I'm so tired of running and sick with despair.

My body is aching and filled with such pain;

And dear God I pray, as I run in the rain

That someone will love me and give me a home,

A warm cozy bed, and food of my own.

My last owner left me alone in the yard...

 

School Principal Jumps in Icy River to Rescue Boy

Cocheco River in New Hampshire

HERO GWEN RHODES 

When Gwen Rhodes went to work last week, she had no idea that she would be celebrated throughout the country as a hero. Rhodes is the principal of a New Hampshire elementary school, Gonic School, on the outskirts of Rochester, NH.

If I had a child in elementary school, especially a child who has special problems, I would move Heaven and  Earth to have Gwen Rhodes (pictured right) as the principal of that school. And, if I was a parent of one of the children in Gonic School today, I would know that my prayers for my child's school experience had been answered.

RESCUES BOY IN ICY RIVER

Principal Rhodes risked her own life in order to save the life of a student. She jumped into the frigid Cocheco River to save 10-year-old Andrew Brown, who had fallen through the ice, reports Huffington Post.

Andrew, who has autism, ran away from a teacher after a morning recess. He ran through the woods behind his grade school and onto the frozen river. The teacher and principal Rhodes ran after him and saw Andrew stop on a section of thin ice and then fall through the ice.

 YOU WERE ON THIN ICE SON

Rhodes ran onto the river's thin ice and reached the little boy, making use of tree branches along the river bank to pull the boy and herself to safety. The chilling experience left them both with hypothermia and bruises, but alive. Left, Andrew warms up in hospital.

"They were both up to their chests in water," said Lieutenant Dennis Dube, Rochester Fire Department, reported by Reuters. "(Rhodes) saved us from performing a very technical rescue," Dube said. "We're calling it a very brave act. Normally we don't condone such a thing, but she was stuck in a hard place there."

WOW!

Not only did Gwen Rhodes rescue a boy who could have drowned, but she became a role model for us all, and through her example, we are inspired. We want to believe that those who watch over our children are willing to risk their own lives to save our child. And, maybe, should we be desperate for help ourselves, someone will be there to help us, too. Yes, Virginia, there are good people in this world! 

Does your child's teachers and school principal follow their codes of ethics?

CLICK & READ:"School Administrators Code of Ethics" 

CLICK & READ: "Code of Ethics Assn. of American Educators" 

                              

  by Sharon McEachern

Kids Smoke More When They See Other Kids Smoking Say Researchers

Young people who smoke daily light up more cigarettes if they see other young people smoking. Surprise!

NEW RESEARCH ?

Most of us have known this fact for years. That's why parents don't want their kids to associate with kids who smoke. They are a bad influence. Afterall, most kids desperately want to be just like their peers. Being different is awful for them.

Yet, Zeena Harakeh, a social scientist from Utrecht University, Netherlands, recently researched the subject of what encourages young smokers to light a cigarette. Surprisingly, she came up with an unexpected finding.

WANNA CIGARETTE OR WATCH ME ?

Dr. Harakeh investigated what encourages smokers aged 16 to 24 to light up. You would think, intuitively, that young people would smoke more when they are offered a cigarette. But, you'd be wrong. They actually smoke more when in company of a smoking peer, even when no one offers them a cigarette.

Follow-Up: Another Face Burned in Surgical Fire

          Tommy Beams, Washington State,latest burn victim of surgical fire 

 

It was just a few days after a similar horrible surgical fire in Florida, that a man undergoing routine surgery in a Grays Harbor Community Hospital, Washington state, had a fire erupt on his face  -- while he was unconscious and under anesthesia. Tommy Beams (pictured above)was burned on his face and head. 

Beam was undergoing a one-hour procedure to remove a bump on his head when he said his oxygen mask caught fire. He was rushed to Harborview Medical Center after the accident last Thursday.

"The physical pain is tremendous," Beam told the Baltimore Sun. "My lips, my face ... on fire."

Woman's Face Catches On Fire: Surgical Fires Are Under-Reported

                Photo courtesy of the ECRI Institute.

SURGICAL FIRES happen too often -- 550 to 650 fires every year, estimates the ECRI Institute, a nonprofit health services research agency. Actually, fires in hospital surgical suites occur much more frequently in reality.

Incidents of surgical fires are "significantly under-reported," according to The Joint Commission, which accredits and certifies more than 19,000 health care organizations and programs in the U.S.

HEAT, FUEL & OXYGEN

In the fire triangle -- heat, fuel and oxygen -- all three elements often come together in the surgery room, yielding disturbing consequences. "... surgical fires are certainly one of the most frightening and devastating experiences for everyone involved," says The Joint Commission. 

More than half of surgical fires happen inside a patient's airway or on the patient's upper body; around 10 percent of surgical fires actually happen within the body cavity; and a quarter of surgical fires happen on other parts of the body, reports MSNBC.

 

Pox Parties and Chickenpox Lollipops: Dangerous Substitutes for Vaccinations

"Chickenpox" Copyright by EthicSoup.com

 

SOME PARENTS act as if they've never heard the old admonition "Don't take candy from a stranger." They're giving their kids pre-licked lollipops, infected with chickenpox and mailed to them by strangers they met on the Internet. Yikes!

Before there was a chickenpox vaccine, prior to 1995, parents sent their kids to 'pox parties,'  where moms would arrange play dates with infected children. Hopefully, the kids would catch varicella, the herpes virus that causes chicken pox, and develop immunity.

WANNA CHICKENPOX LOLLIPOP?

Now some parents are going to social media sites, like Facebook, and using the Internet to expose their kids to the disease. How? They pay other parents for lollipops infected with the chickenpox virus. For example, infected lollipops were recently advertised at $50, overnight delivery from Nashville, reports the New York Times.

Wow! At $50 a pop, I can see a kid sick with chicken pox, her hands in mittens so she won't scratch and leave terrible scars. She's in bed, next to a big box from which her Mom retrieves sucker-after-sucker, saying "Now lick this one, Honey."

 

Elderly in Emergency Room Get Less Pain Relief

 

The elderly who go to a hospital emergency room in pain are less likely to get medication for it than younger people in similar distress, reported in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

An analysis of a seven-year national study of E.R. patient data concluded that of patients over 75 years old, who were in pain, only 49 percent were given pain medication -- compared to more than 65 percent of those under 75. The study involved information on more than 88,000 E.R. visits. The analysis did not include elderly people who were cognitively impaired or unable to report pain.

WHERE'S THE PAIN RELIEF?

There were no clear findings for the patient-age differences of the elderly receiving pain medication; however, researchers think one possible reason may be that emergency room personnel are concerned about adverse effects of pain medications for the elderly. Another explanation could be that E.R. personnel pay more attention to diagnosis in older patients and less attention to pain relief.

Hippocratic Oath: Old Classic Version vs New Modern Version

HIPPOCRATIC OATH

Classical Version

I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:

To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art -- if they desire to learn it -- without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but no one else.

I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.

I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.

I will not use the knife,not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.

Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.

What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about.

If I fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.

-- Translation from the Greek by Ludwig Edelstein. From "The Hippocratic Oath: Text, Translation, and Interpretation," by Ludwig Edelstein. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1943.

 

HIPPOCRATIC OATH 

Modern Version

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures (that) are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness my affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent  disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those wound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

 -- Written by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, in 1964, and used today in many medical schools.

Munson Healthcare Hospital Tells Employees: Get Flu Shot or Get Out

 Hospital employees at Munson Healthcare in Traverse City, Michigan, are upset over the ultimatum delivered to them -- get a flu shot or get fired.

Apparently, workers who refuse by the end of the year can be fired, reports AP via the Chicago Tribune:

INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS SACRIFICED

Officials at Munson say "Individual rights must be sacrificed for the welfare of patients whose health could be threatened if exposed to flu."  

The healthcare group, with seven hospitals serving 24 counties, decided to make flu shots mandatory because voluntary compliance has never topped 65 percent, officials said.

FLU SHOT ULTIMATUM

Some employees, however, are upset by the ultimatum to get flu shots or lose their jobs. Approximately 50 showed up for a recent meeting of Michigan Opping Mandatory Vaccinations, a group that promotes vaccine choice.

Horrific Death: Chicken Farm's Plan to Pulverize Live Chickens in Grinder

 

AT LAST A WHISTLE BLOWER -- The egg company, TWJ Farms in Nebraska, planned on grinding up some 70,000 chickens while the layers were still alive said the whistle blower.

Just how many "spent" hens -- those whose exhausted bodies no longer produce enough eggs to make it worth continuing to feed them -- have already been killed in a grinder? A witness reported to People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) that during recent years, the TWJ factory farm has ground-to-death hundreds of thousands of live chickens.

LEFT TO SUFFER IN AGONY

A PETA op-ed piece published by Opposing Views, describing the witness report, stated: "...many of the birds were not killed outright but were ejected from the grinder with missing wings and limbs and left to suffer in agony for hours before finally dying, sometimes a day later."