Thursday, March 12, 2009
Morality or something like it
Okay, so something happened today when I was having lunch with a friend. Its one of those hypothetical 'what ifs' that we cover during an ethics lecture, but this time it happened for real. After lunch, as we were walking back towards the hospital, we spotted an ambulance in the middle of the road with a small crowd around it. Apparently, a pedestrian had just been hit and the ambulance had only just arrived. At the scene there was a young women sprawled on the road with two first aiders in attendance. Now, you might think me a bad person for this, but my first thought was, 'F@#K! What am I supposed to do? F@#K!' I mean, what exactly AM I going to do? The ambulance is there, the paramedics were starting to get things organised, all I'd be doing is walking up saying I'm a doctor and then that's about it! Without all the blood tests, splints, x-rays and nursing staff, what exactly can I provide to this person lying in the road, other than a few empty words of encouragement? Without all the back up you have in the ED, there is pretty much sweet f@#k all I can do in the street. Needless to say, and to my shame, I continued to walk on by. Only after we had passed by did my friend dare to ask, 'Shouldn't you have done something back there?' Right.
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Nah mate, you did the right thing by allowing those who are trained for such situation to help and not causing an unnecessary distraction. Clearly your responsibility is to help inside the hospital - that takes very different expertise than helping out in the street from an ambulance.
ReplyDeleteI'd imagine the paramedics might have gotten angry and distracted if you'd tried to help.
What would happen if the situation was reversed? ie, paramedics in a hospital?