Anna Pou Ethical Dilemmas

In the year of 2005 a medical physician named Dr. Anna Pou along with other physicians and nurses to some people made a heroic decision but, to other made an unjustified decision that is still spoken of today. This was the year Hurricane Katrina struck a community hospital named Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans which empowered the smell of death. Hurricane Katrina had hammered out power, running water and had propelled the temperature inside memorial hospital. The hospital was low in supplies, the smell of sewer with washed up bodies began to skim through the walls and the hospital was in desperate need of help. Dr. Anna Pou along with other physicians took control of the chaos and acted upon what they thought was best.
Leaving the sickest and those with DNR forms signed by physicians left last to be evacuated. Patients were spilt into three groups. Group 1 was those in a reasonably good condition, those who can sit up or walk, Group 2 contained those that were sicker and needed assistance and group 3 accommodated those who were remarkably ill and had DNR’s singed along with Lifecare patients. Three days after …show more content…
Sheri Fink reporter of The New York Times has stated that Dr. Pou “has said that informed consent is impossible during disasters…” which clearly means that patients of the Memorial Medical center had no informed consent of what was going on. As physicians it is there right and duty to inform their patients of the circumstances they are in but, they also have a moral right not to tell them. These physicians violated those patients’ rights no matter what the situation was. But as a person and a future physician I understand the decision being made here, as a physician you are there to comfort and help people get better not worse. If not telling these patients that they have a high possibility of not surviving and seeing all hope and motivation being lost, I would have made the same

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