who should we choose to save?

Ethics is an emerged topic which is excess in number of articles. It is all about the judgment, defending and even recommendation on the concept of right or wrong conduct. We can see ethics is everywhere. It is widely in social life, working world and even in business context. Somehow, it’s tough for us to give comment of ethical or unethical in an issue. It is because that issue is right in some aspects but it is wrong in the others. Today, I would like to share an ethical dilemma which I’d learned from a Hong Kong drama. Although it’s just a drama, it mays happen in the real world. And this dilemma is necessary for us to look at it as an ethical lesson.

The story which I’m sharing now is about a surgery doctor who holds in hand the survival of 2 patients. One is a good student and virtuous child in a normal family; he contributed to the society by volunteering in social activities and has a good future. The other is a dissipated dude, playboy as well as drug addict in a rich and famous family. In an unusual day, a horrible accident occurs in front of the hospital. There were few dozen people are in injury. Among of them, several are in serious cases. Therefore, at that moment, the hospital is extremely in demanding. All of the doctors, nurses are very busy. It can be said that no one is available for extra patients at that time. Unfortunately, there is found that two patients are in serious injury as well. They are the ones I mentioned earlier. Additionally, the rich child is the one who cause the accident. Two of them need to be implemented brain surgery immediately. Otherwise, they will die. However, there is just only one doctor available at that minute. The ethical dilemma is from here. Who should he choose to save? He will save the pious child or the rich immoral man who cause the incident? Before the time he comes out with the decision, there is a nurse against him and suggests him to save the pious child. It is because the rich guy is the one who cause the accident. He does not deserve to be saved. Eventually, he decides to save the rich man. Unfortunately, the brain surgery is fail due to there is not enough blood to supply, that guy dies. The pious child dies as well.

Before the ethical class, I thought that the problem could be end there. The drama just wants to convey how good the doctor is in his decision making. However, after taking the class, I remembered about this case and realized that there is an ethical issue in this part of the drama. The doctor reasons that he decided to save the rich immoral guy because of the higher survival percentage. In his point of view, this may be the right decision. Meanwhile, the difference of survival proportion is low. It means that if the doctor chooses to save the moral boy first, the saving percentage will be almost the same. People question that the rich guy is not deserved to be saved, why he saved him. As a conscience doctor, he supposes to save the virtuous boy. Therefore, in other perspective, his decision is unethical because he intends to catch the attention from the rich man family in order to support his future career.

Let’s assume that this is a true situation, we are as a doctor. Should we choose to save the rich person who caused the accident is in higher percentage of survival but the differences of that proportion is low; or we make a choice to save the moral boy? If we choose to save the moral boy, after the surgery, we have nothing, no reward and even are sued by the rich family. If the rich guy is to be saved and survive after surgery, we will get reward and have good development in the future career but we will receive negative comment from other people.  How should we make the decision? For me, I will do what I think it is the right thing to do. For my decision, I will choose to save the guy who causes the accident. It is because he has higher survival percentage; even though it’s just a little bit. Higher is higher, we cannot negate it. In the context of saving people, we should not see who is good, who is bad. The most important object is to save the one who has most ability to survive rather than react according to emotion. If we put too much emotion at work in saving people, it mays not be efficient at all.

In conclusion, I would like to say that ethic is just black and while, right and wrong. It’s not maybe right or maybe wrong. Besides that, the concept of ethical of unethical is depend on the person who defining the problem.