Concept · #paternalism
Paternalism
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Your father is no longer safe to drive but won’t give up the keys. Is taking them care or theft?
An everyday case that many families meet sooner or later. Your father is eighty-one. His reactions have slowed, he has scraped the car twice this year, and last week he drove through a red light without noticing. He insists he is fine.…
Started by The Editors3 replies -
Your father still drives and probably should not. Whose decision is it to take the keys?
A familiar family scene. Your father is eighty-four. He drove for sixty years without an accident, and has had two small scrapes since the spring. Lately he gets lost on routes he has known for decades. His doctor has not told him…
Started by The Editors4 replies -
In a hard delivery we tell the mother “the baby is fine” before we know. Does keeping her calm make it right?
On our ward, when a labour goes badly, someone always says it: the baby is fine, keep pushing. Often nobody knows that yet. The heartbeat has dropped, the doctor is coming, and the mother is frightened. A frightened mother tightens, pushes badly…
Started by Farhana Akter3 replies -
My client wants to cross the pass in a storm. Is stopping him paternalism, or just my job?
Last season a client, a strong man from Germany with good equipment and a lot of money, wanted to cross the Thorong La on a morning when the clouds were already low and the wind was rising. I said no. He said…
Started by Nima Tsering Gurung2 replies -
Strangers grab my wheelchair to help without asking. Is unasked-for help a kind of disrespect?
It happened twice this week. On a ramp outside a ministry in Amman, a man took the handles of my chair and pushed me up, talking to my colleague the whole time, not to me. In a shop a woman lifted my…
Started by Dima Nasser3 replies