Supporting Significant Life Events
Our life is full of various events. If some of them pass as routine, the other may become indelible for the rest of our life. For me, such event was connected to my dear uncle, who had the last stage of cancer. The strong tall man learnt about it being alone, and he could not share it with anybody. I was a single person who knew of his condition and supported him through his life. Therefore, I would like to observe and evaluate this situation according to the principles of Cristopher Johns’ reflective model to understand if my actions were correct or not. Johns’ method entails such activities as description of the experience, influencing factors, the possible improvements, learning, and reflection. At that time, I did not yet specialize in medicine, health care, and medical treatment. Therefore, the understanding, evaluation, and actions concerning this situation had nothing in common with the academic knowledge. The only thing I wanted was to help my uncle to overcome this obstacle, complete his unfinished tasks, and leave that world in peace. I may suppose that this wish totally appealed to consequences and my obligation to my uncle. However, my immature and inexperienced mind addressed to nothing but inner motivation, personal perception, and values. My wish to help may be defined as the positive one if to consider and evaluate these factors according to Judith Johnson’s article on behaving with dying. As a result, he felt rather comfortable and happy around me. Also, I suppose that I could not do more because of the absence of the experience and knowledge. Analyzing the situation, I made all possible efforts. I provided the emotional support, took care of his house work, accounting, and kept his secret. The emotional support and care improved his mood and provided much comfort. Since my uncle wanted to protect all his relatives, he wished to keep his condition and the upcoming death in secret. However, this situation may be defined as the wrong solution, because it was the great shock for the rest of the family to discover that paramedics had to hospitalize him after he had fainted in his apartment. The rest of the family may have reacted to this issue more calmly if I had persuaded my uncle to inform them earlier. As a result, it would have prevented them from such a shock and probably increased their participation in his life. According to Johns’ theory, the picture, analyses, evaluation, learning, and reflection on the issue should address the behavior and its relevance to various principles. I meant to make my uncle happy. I consider that I have applied all ethical principles connected to him. The observations of the material concerning the ideas of help for the dying people proved my previous opinion. Nevertheless, keeping the situation in secret upon my uncle’s request was not a good decision, because it had a negative influence on relatives. Moreover, the publications recommend sharing the problem with the relatives. However, this point would stay under the question for me, because there is a contradiction between the interests of the dying, the rest of the family, and recommendations. Concluding the abovementioned situation, goals, personal evaluation, learning, and reflection, I can state that all my actions protected interests of my uncle, for whom this situation was a significant experience. Additionally, the defined factors and personal values helped meet the particular goals. Even though some actions in that situation contradicted the medical and ethical recommendations, I would not act in any other way.
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