[Tina Vaillancourt]

1. I feel like the 60 minutes piece fairly represented the book. While it could have gone into more detail about the conditions that the staff at Memorial was dealing with I think it did portray Dr. Pou’s perspective on things and it left the reader with the impression that she had done everything she could do, which was the same impression I was left with when reading the book. Ultimately I feel bad for Dr. Pau and I feel like the 60 Minutes article painters her in a sympathetic light, despite the Attorney General’s position that she committed murder.

2. I think it was important for Fink to include information about the high-profile murders and the murder rate in New Orleans because it was important to put things into perspective when evaluating what took place at Memorial. No matter how you feel about Dr. Pou and the others, it is unfair to compare their actions to the senseless acts of violence in the city. It also seems like the District Attorney may have been using this case as a means of diverting attention away from the many other failed prosecutions in the office.

3. I was unable to view the episode of Boston Legal.

4. I found the historical perspectives on mercy killings to be very interesting. Clearly these are moral decisions that societies have been struggling with since the beginning of time. Questions about quality of life and the ethical treatment of those we know will die are almost impossible to answer. Pain management, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide have always been discussed within medical circles because societies entrust doctors with these difficult decisions. While I don’t think there is any one answer I do think the fact that the medical profession has struggled with these issues forever makes Dr. Pou’s actions a little more understandable.

5. Dr. Pou’s attorney was unable to find any useful guidelines from the AMA to aid in his defense because there simply were no guidelines on how to act in the midst of such natural disasters. To make matters worse, the guidelines they did have on palliative care required consultation with family members which is something she did not do. The ethicist, Arthur Caplan decided that Dr. Pou acted unethically and outside the purview of palliative care. He was troubled by the lack of documentation of medicine that was being administered and he also felt more effort should have been made to contact and consult with family members. Although the AMA had no standards at the time of the incident, after what took place at Memorial they passed model legislation to shield doctors from criminal and civil liability unless it could be should they acted with malice.

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