first and foremost of course is the morbid wit, which is brilliant and would have worked by itself
it then potrays the gut wrenching suffering that cancer treatment, not cancer, causes.
and usually for no avail to the patient most of the time, and only helps to improve the quantum of knowledge of the disease and ways to devise new drugs, and the tunnel vision that clinicians develop while treating patients as guinea pigs
in itself, it is not terrible: a majority of the life saving drugs we have today are a result of testing on actual guinea pigs (or rather mice) and on human beings treated that way; if the patients actually give informed consent.
what is terrible is that clinicians and researchers put these patients through terrible suffering (taking advantage of the immense fear of death), without informing the patients that there is very little chance that any of the treatment works, but it will definitely give the clinicians/doctors/researchers more data points and will increase our collective knowledge. if patients agree to it, then it is perfectly acceptable that the clinicians treat patients like guinea pigs, and within the context, remove the human element and view the patients as "research" (because it reduces the efficacy of the study if pesky humanity is introduced).
If you want dignity, especially in a field where there is no cure, you must remove the people whose agenda is not in-line with yours. the researcher's/clinician's agenda is to not help individuals, but rather to find a solution to a problem. It might in the process help thousands of others in the future, but that is simply an irrelevant albeit benign side-effect.
the doctor's agenda similarly may be to help gain experience/expertise and be recognized as better in the field than their peers. again, it may help some people in the process, but that is not really the goal.
for some people, enduring suffering to increase their longevity may be their acceptable and increasing longevity may be the agenda (and in line with the doctor's), but they must ensure that the doctors are not exaggerating the likelihood of success and the amount of pain to endure. However, this can be further complicated by people's aversion to speaking/thinking of death, and even further complicated by their loved ones making the patient's illness and suffering about themselves. They would be willing to put the patient through suffering and horrible pain, so that they can postpone their feeling of loss (which the play does not address).
What the play also addresses is that while we constantly portray doctors as terrible people, they are no different from everyone else.
Some of us may be kind in the process, but when it comes to our professions, we behave similarly. If we want doctors to treat patients in a different way, we'd have to make it so it is no longer a "profession" (but then that is simply not possible). So we have to better inform our people and make it someone else's profession to do so.
first and foremost of course is the morbid wit, which is brilliant and would have worked by itself
it then potrays the gut wrenching suffering that cancer treatment, not cancer, causes.
and usually for no avail to the patient most of the time, and only helps to improve the quantum of knowledge of the disease and ways to devise new drugs, and the tunnel vision that clinicians develop while treating patients as guinea pigs
in itself, it is not terrible: a majority of the life saving drugs we have today are a result of testing on actual guinea pigs (or rather mice) and on human beings treated that way; if the patients actually give informed consent.
what is terrible is that clinicians and researchers put these patients through terrible suffering (taking advantage of the immense fear of death), without informing the patients that there is very little chance that any of the treatment works, but it will definitely give the clinicians/doctors/researchers more data points and will increase our collective knowledge. if patients agree to it, then it is perfectly acceptable that the clinicians treat patients like guinea pigs, and within the context, remove the human element and view the patients as "research" (because it reduces the efficacy of the study if pesky humanity is introduced).
If you want dignity, especially in a field where there is no cure, you must remove the people whose agenda is not in-line with yours. the researcher's/clinician's agenda is to not help individuals, but rather to find a solution to a problem. It might in the process help thousands of others in the future, but that is simply an irrelevant albeit benign side-effect.
the doctor's agenda similarly may be to help gain experience/expertise and be recognized as better in the field than their peers. again, it may help some people in the process, but that is not really the goal.
for some people, enduring suffering to increase their longevity may be their acceptable and increasing longevity may be the agenda (and in line with the doctor's), but they must ensure that the doctors are not exaggerating the likelihood of success and the amount of pain to endure. However, this can be further complicated by people's aversion to speaking/thinking of death, and even further complicated by their loved ones making the patient's illness and suffering about themselves. They would be willing to put the patient through suffering and horrible pain, so that they can postpone their feeling of loss (which the play does not address).
What the play also addresses is that while we constantly portray doctors as terrible people, they are no different from everyone else.
Some of us may be kind in the process, but when it comes to our professions, we behave similarly. If we want doctors to treat patients in a different way, we'd have to make it so it is no longer a "profession" (but then that is simply not possible). So we have to better inform our people and make it someone else's profession to do so.