Ethical Issues In The Movie Wit

The movie Wit chronicles the care of patient Vivian Bearing, a poetry professor who is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer and is undergoing aggressive chemotherapy treatment. While in the hospital, Vivian is taken care of by a nurse named Susie, and her treatment is overseen by Dr. Kelekian and Dr. Jason Posner, who happens to be a former student of Vivian’s (Bosanquet & Nichols, 2010). Throughout her time in the hospital Ms. Bearing doesn’t always receive the best care; ethical principles are violated and her team often fails to communicate with each other properly. Vivian’s only real ally and advocate is Susie. The doctors are much too focused on the disease, and using it for research, to really focus on their patient. While Vivian’s overall experience has many bumps in the road, having Susie as her nurse to advocate and provide patient centered care makes some of the hard times more bearable. Susie tries her hardest to communicate with the other healthcare professionals, advocate for Vivian, and focus the care on Vivian even though her attempts are met with little to no respect by her
447). Communication is an important, foundational, and integral aspect in the nursing field. Nurses must be able to effectively communicate with patients, coworkers, family members, and other staff in order to provide the best care possible. There are two major types of communication, verbal and nonverbal, which can occur together or separately (Taylor et al., 2015). Taylor defines verbal communication as “an exchange of information using words” and nonverbal communication, also called body language, as “the transmission of information without the use of words” (Taylor et al., 2015, p. 449). Verbal and nonverbal communication are used throughout the movie, not always in the best way