The Worn Path Analysis
Children rely on their family to make the best decisions for their health. In The Use of Force and The Worn Path, we see two very distinct decisions being made about a child’s health. In The Use of Force a doctor suspects that a child might have Diphtheria, and actually has to use force to provide the best medical care in deciding if the child has that deadly disease because the child refused to open her mouth. In The Worn Path there is a woman who has to travel a long distance facing discrimination just to get a medicine for her grandchild. In both of these stories we see people making decisions believed to be the best for the child in question. Children are not capable of decision –making capacity, or the ability to decide what is best for
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She was sick, and the doctor assumed that the child had Diptheria due to recent cases at her school. He proceeded to ask to look inside the child’s throat to see if there was “a thick, gray coating…in the throat” (CDC). This is indicative of Diptheria. The child didn’t make a move. Not being able to get a throat culture scared him because “he had to have a throat culture for her own protection”(Williams). The reasoning why this was so important was because according to the Center of Disease Control Fifty percent of un-treated cases die (CDC). Once he explained the importance of this to her parents they gave consent and tried to help him force the girl’s mouth open. He was able to find out that the child did have Diptheria. Afterwards, the doctor felt bad saying maybe he “should have desisted and come back in an hour or more”(Williams). I however, don’t think that would have changed anything. The girl was obviously stubborn and scared so he provided the best medical care possible. That doctor and parents did what they had to do in the best interest possible of the child. Even in emergency cases like when giving CPR on the field it is instructed “that permission to give care must be obtained from a parent or guardian when one is available. If the condition is life threatening, permission—or consent—is implied if a parent or guardian is not present” (Red Cross). Even if a child doesn’t want your help in a
She was sick, and the doctor assumed that the child had Diptheria due to recent cases at her school. He proceeded to ask to look inside the child’s throat to see if there was “a thick, gray coating…in the throat” (CDC). This is indicative of Diptheria. The child didn’t make a move. Not being able to get a throat culture scared him because “he had to have a throat culture for her own protection”(Williams). The reasoning why this was so important was because according to the Center of Disease Control Fifty percent of un-treated cases die (CDC). Once he explained the importance of this to her parents they gave consent and tried to help him force the girl’s mouth open. He was able to find out that the child did have Diptheria. Afterwards, the doctor felt bad saying maybe he “should have desisted and come back in an hour or more”(Williams). I however, don’t think that would have changed anything. The girl was obviously stubborn and scared so he provided the best medical care possible. That doctor and parents did what they had to do in the best interest possible of the child. Even in emergency cases like when giving CPR on the field it is instructed “that permission to give care must be obtained from a parent or guardian when one is available. If the condition is life threatening, permission—or consent—is implied if a parent or guardian is not present” (Red Cross). Even if a child doesn’t want your help in a