It's hard for me to imagine the bravery it takes to sign up for this -- even if you're dying already, something like this is unlikely to result in a peaceful final days on earth (between being a science experiment, the media, optional major traumatic surgery, etc...). The folks undergoing this are incredibly admirable.
waiting for a kidney transplant while slogging through dialysis is a brutal experience, the mental and post physical struggle is mad real. I was lucky enough to match with a family member eventually. I can see how on some last resort shit why not try this.
From what I’ve read, it is that these patients are too far along for much hope of anything. I’d certainly like to go out adding to the hope that future patients don’t have to suffer the same fate.
Disagree. The "choose life at any quality of life" ideology causes immense suffering.
Ideally in the long run, this is a step in the direction of keeping people alive with a higher quality of life, but that's unlikely to be this first person's experience.
Sure, but is a low quality life worse than oblivion? Even if you're not 25 and healthy and wealthy and happy, I think life is still worth living.
Plus, if the suffering experienced by this patient helps cause someone else (or many someones else for centuries to come) to have a higher quality of life, one person's suffering can buy a lot of QALYs.
Alternatively if as my mother tells me, I'm doomed to an eternity of unimaginable physical and psychological torture by supernaturally powerful fallen angelic beings with complete control of my entire sensorium, even a few more minutes of being hooked up to a hospital bed with doctors trying to make things better are preferable to that!
> Sure, but is a low quality life worse than oblivion?
Unequivocally yes. I think you are drastically underestimating how bad a life can get.
> Plus, if the suffering experienced by this patient helps cause someone else (or many someones else for centuries to come) to have a higher quality of life, one person's suffering can buy a lot of QALYs.
Exactly, that's why I'm arguing that this person's choice is brave.
I'd wager such choices are highly personal, and different people will weigh things differently. I've seen quotes from people undergoing dangerous and highly experimental treatments stating that they felt happy to help medicine learn, even at significant cost to themselves. The patient in this case said much the same.
Nonetheless, I do generally agree with you. I've seen several articles about how doctors die very differently than most people (they often have DNRs and far fewer end-of-life interventions).
Why? My doctor's job is to give me health advice and treatment not moral advice. And it's none of society's business so really they shouldn't be chiming in anyway.
So why say anything if it’s just an opinion if not a call to action seeking to censor certain opinions?
And my comment likened both, so to suggest the intent of the word censoring is somehow different is semantic nitpicking rather than any productive discourse.
> So why say anything if it’s just an opinion if not a call to action seeking to censor certain opinions?
Why not? I could make an argument that cultural change happens through conversations like this, but honestly I think people are just intrinsically motivated to share their opinions whether it makes any difference or not.
> And my comment likened both, so to suggest the intent of the word censoring is somehow different is semantic nitpicking rather than any productive discourse.
The difference between censoring someone and disagreeing with their opinion is NOT a nitpicky detail. It's literally one of the major differences between totalitarianism and democracy.
The position that censorship is the only way to get people to stop saying things you disagree with, is an absurd, extremist position.
The article addresses this. The patient previously had a human kidney transplant in 2018, which failed sometime in (reading slightly between the lines) 2023, as well as having other health issues. Another human Kidney wouldn't have been made available to him for five to six years, and his doctors didn't believe that he would live that long.
I still think it counts as brave though, certainly not an easy choice.
