A patient has been told that he has a terminal illness, but a new medication for the illness has just been introduced for experi
mental use by a teaching facility nearby. The physician has told the patient that he must make a decision about whether to try this medication. As the patient leaves the office, he turns to you and asks what you would do and how he should respond to this matter. He states that he has been told that the medication may prolong his life, but his quality of life may suffer. How do you respond to the patient?
Choices will have to be when confronted with certain challenging situations. Here, the choice is to either have a prolonged life span with a low quality of life (in terms of health) and a probably short life span due to the terminal illness being confronted with.
Judging from an individual perspective, when a medication is taken, it actually should be geared towarda improving the quality of health or living. However, with a medication which works to improve on life span but a reduced quality of living, then it means the patient will likely suffer for the best part of this prolonged period due to this medication. Therefore, this wouldn't be the best option as the patient will eventually die after sustaining an elongated period of suffering.
