Thursday, December 3, 2015
Man in the High Castle
10:54 AM | 
Posted by
Kaplan Center for Health and Wellness
This blog post is a wee bit
selfish. I recently binge-watched the
first season of an amazing show called Man in the High Castle. (I don’t want to be a commercial, but if you
search that one really big online retailer, you might find it.) This show is based on a book by the same name
written by Phillip K. Dick. Let’s just
say I enjoyed the show so much that I requested the book from our local library
and am patiently awaiting its arrival.
(I’m also hoping there will be a Season 2, which is the selfish part of
this post…).
The show begins with an alternate
history. The Allies lost World War II to
the Axis powers and now the eastern half of the country is controlled by
Germany and the Western half is controlled by Japan. There is much more to the story, but an
interesting outcome of this power shift is that Nazi philosophies are simply a
way of life in the United States. In one
scene, a main character asks why it appears to be snowing. The response is a something like “Oh, that’s
the hospital. It’s Tuesday. They burn the terminally ill and elderly”.
Later in the show, one of the Nazi
leaders discovers that his son has a degenerative disease. When he requests a second opinion, he is
gently reminded by his physician that if anyone else finds out about the
diagnosis, it will become an “institutional” issue and the father will no
longer have a choice about time/place to end his son’s life. He is given a kit to take home and use at his
convenience.
Wow.
We talk about assisted suicide in our country and some states have even
legalized it for certain diagnoses (Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and
California). These rights are given to
mentally competent patients only, and a long list of criteria must be met. After that, it is up to the patient to take
the prescribed lethal dose of medication and only if they decide to go through
with it. No one can assist and it can
certainly never be imposed.
Watching this show was an excellent
reminder of the healthcare freedoms we have in our country. We can seek a second opinion any time we
like. In most cases, we can choose our
own physicians. We can always refuse
procedures and even when we face tough choices, we can request an audience with
an ethics committee to help us make those difficult decisions.
Healthcare in our country is not
without problems or controversy.
However, sometimes it is necessary to step back and be thankful for the
freedoms we hold dear.
Valerie J Connor, MA CCC-SLP; CHES
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