Use Of Force Essay

The Use of Force Questions:

How did you interpret the patient and her motivations in the story?
I interpreted the patient as being very neglectful. She was motivated by the idea of keeping her secret hidden so that she could escape having to bear the experience of getting diagnosed with this disease and going through the torture.
How did you interpret the doctor and his motivations in the story?
I interpreted the doctor as not only doing his job, but doing it with a purpose. He was very caring, and he didn’t treat the little girl as an object to be fixed, but he saw her more as a person that he needed to save. His motivations were to save the little girl so that she would not result in yet another
young death that could have been prevented.
How did you interpret the family and their motivations in the story?
I interpreted the family as being too passive. They tried to help and hold their daughter down, yet they didn’t want to hurt her at the same time. I felt like they were more passive because of their embarrassment in front of the doctor. The family was motivated by the idea that if they weren’t able to find out whether or not their daughter had this infectious disease, then it could result in a more permanent outcome such as death, so this really drove them to strive to find the answer.
How does power and submission come into play in the course of the story, and how did they operate within the doctor/patient relationship? How might this doctor/patient relationship have been changed by a more biopsychological model of treatment?
Power and submission come into play in the course of the story because the parents looked at the doctor as having the power and they were very submissive; willing to do anything it took to find the answers to the big question of if their daughter possessed diphtheria or not.
Power and submission operated with the doctor/patient relationship because the doctor held the power of having the experience and expertise of being able to diagnosis the patient, so the parents listened to the doctor no matter how sassy his remarks were or even when he threatened their child to apply force because of her consistent refusal to conform. This doctor/patient relationship might have been changed by a more biopsychological model of treatment because instead of proceeding immediately into the procedure he should have first making a relationship with the patient, then she probably would have been more trusting and compliant.
What is the role of the ‘use of force’ in doctor/patient relationships? (Both in the story and outside of it?)
The role of the ‘use of force’ in doctor/patient relationships in the story is only applied when the little girl started to get aggressive and when she refused to comply after various attempts of being very gentle and patient. It was used first as a threat to get the child to comply, but then used to get evidence of the membrane associated with diphtheria. Outside of the story the ‘use of force’ in doctor/patient relationships is used for the same reason. Doctors use
force in order to get a task done and to accomplish a goal that benefit the patient.

Select one quote you find particularly telling about the doctor or patient and explain how it affected their engagement in this story.
“But I have seen at least two children lying dead in bed of neglect in such cases, and feeling that I must get a diagnosis now or never I went at it again,” this quote shows that the doctor actually cares about the patient. The doctor could have easily given up, but he decided to persevere so that he could diagnose this child before she ended up like those two children who resembled her non-compliant actions and died.