第64回 WORKSHOP報告(7月27日) / 参加者85名

第64回 WORKSHOP報告(7月27日) / 参加者76名

 

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《 今回のworkshop 》

 

○workshop参加人数:85名(うち新人の方:13名)

 

○【前半】:” Overseas travel”をテーマとしたディスカッション

 

○【後半】:” Euthanasia “をテーマとしたディスカッション

 

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1

(1:前半マテリアル作成者のYさんによる説明です)

 

2

(2:前半ディスカッションの様子です)

 

3

(3:後半マテリアル作成者のMさんによる説明です)

 

4

(4:この日は13人の新人の方にお越しいただきました)

 

 

 

<英語サークル E’s club 第64回workshopのご案内>

 

みなさまこんばんは、E’s club幹事のKです。第64回workshopの詳細をお送りいたします。

今回は前半のマテリアルをYさんに、後半のマテリアルをMさんに作成していただきました。

前半は”Overseas travel”、後半は”Euthanasia”をそれぞれテーマとしたディスカッションを行ないます。

 

 

[今週のマテリアル]

<FIRST HALF>

こんにちは、Yと申します。

今回の前半テーマは、「海外旅行の魅力」です。

Esクラブを含め、私の周りには海外旅行好きの人が多いですが、中には、ほとんど興味のない友人もいます。大の海外旅行好きの私としては、それがもし食わず嫌いだとしたら、その魅力をもっと知ってもらいたいな、と感じることがあります。

既に何度か扱われたことのあるテーマかと思いますが、海外旅行の魅力について、改めて掘り下げてみることで、元々好きな方にはその魅力を再発見する機会に、そうでない方には、より興味をもっていただけるような機会になれば幸いです。

 

1, How did you become interested in overseas travel?

(In my case, the geography teacher at high school often tells his traveling experience as backpacker in his class and it encourage me to travel many kinds of countries)

 

2, Why does the overseas travel attract people?

(What is interesting for you to travel abroad compared to domestic travel?)

 

3, Could you tell your actual experience or the story you’ve heard to make the people find it interesting and feel like traveling abroad?

 

4, On the other hand, there are many difficulties such as higher cost and longer flight in deciding to go out for overseas travel.

Are there any other troubles making you hesitate to go out for overseas travel?

 

5, Could you give some proposal and idea to alleviate such difficulties?

 

6, Please propose the overseas traveling plan for the people who aren’t much interested in it to give the opportunity to find it more attractive than expected.

 

 

<LATTER HALF>

I’m T.M, a topic presenter for latter half. A topic I would like to put forward is “Euthanasia” (mercy killing). It is a medical practice that doctors kill a patient without pain who suffers from incurable diseases. There are two types of Euthanasia. Active and passive. Passive euthanasia includes withholding or stopping medical measures from a patient suffering from incurable and painful condition, which leads to death of the patient. Active euthanasia is an act of painlessly ending patient’s life by giving a lethal injection. In this session, we primarily focus on passive euthanasia.

 

【Background】

Euthanasia legislation might be introduced to Diet for deliberation in the near future. If enacted, it becomes legally ok for doctors to withhold or stop life-sustaining treatment following the request from the patient. (This Euthanasia legislation applies to “passive” euthanasia.) Some people say that we should have a right to die in peace while others argue that euthanasia is an assisted suicide, and hence it shouldn’t be legalized. This issue can be not just legal and medical, but ethical and emotional as well.

 

Please don’t get too serious talking about this. My hope is that you will be open-minded about whole thing and learn from other members.

 

【Questions】

Q1.Are you in favor of this Euthanasia legislation or against it? And why?

 

Q2.What are the potential problems you can think of regarding Euthanasia?

 

Q3.If you were a doctor, would you respect a patient request letting him/her die or do everything you can to save him/her life?

 

Q4.If you were a terminally ill patient wanting to die but your family wants you to live, what would you do? And Why?

 

Q5.Hypothetically, one of your family members suddenly got sick and the treating doctor said there is no chance of recovery. That person often said that I wouldn’t ask for life-prolonging treatment if that happens, but this will was not documented. In this case, which option would you choose?

 

【Reference 1】

ジャパンタイムズ

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/05/05/commentary/the-right-to-die-letting-individuals-make-the-choice-themselves/#.UdVlfPeCjIU

(以下一部省略)

 

The right to die: letting individuals make the choice themselves

 

The right to die and end-of-life medical care is a pressing issue in one of the world’s most rapidly aging nations, where about a quarter of the population is over 65.It is time for euthanasia legislation that would spell out guidelines enabling doctors to respect their patients’ wishes without risking prosecution.

 

The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and the U.S. states of Montana, Oregon and Washington allow assisted suicide, and in France medical treatment can be terminated at the request of the family.

 

This is an issue that involves medical ethics, patients’ rights, family interests and the law. And, in the context of burgeoning medical-care expenses in Japan, a country with a shrinking labor force, the cost angle is relevant.

 

Patients can submit living wills to their doctors requesting no extraordinary medical procedures to prolong life, but such requests are not infrequently ignored or overlooked in emergencies. And, once a patient is intubated, as long as their heart is beating, the chances are that they will remain hooked up and kept alive even against their wishes. Intubation is often the point of no return, and doctors potentially face prosecution if they then “pull the plug.”

 

There is thus a major legal disincentive to abide by the desires of a patient or their family, while hospitals can fill billable beds with long-term patients who in many cases require minimal, but costly care.

 

By nationality, Japanese have one of the world’s longest life expectancies, but too many have unpleasant and lonely end-of-life experiences. The sad reality is that many people are on feeding tubes or respirators whether they want to be or not. Many, too, suffer dementia while their families, as carers, must bear significant burdens in their “nursing hell.” Meanwhile, the elderly are frequently deferential to doctors, and consequently the decision is often left to their discretion. In sudden emergencies there is no opportunity for the patient or their family to make an informed choice.

 

Doctors understand the situation as well as anyone, are sympathetic to patients and worry about the quality of life, but they operate in a legal gray area that leaves them vulnerable. In these circumstances it is important to establish a legal framework both for patients to make informed choices and to protect medical professionals

 

The key issue is who gets to decide on stopping life-support and overcoming taboos about voluntary euthanasia. Patients usually rely on doctors’ advice and trust they will make good medical choices. The problem in Japan is that doctors often do make the choice to prolong life even if it means defying the wishes of their patients. And thus patients are put on respirators and are otherwise medicated without any prospect of recovery.

 

In 2010, Mika Yanagihara authored “Messages from Makiko’s Soul,” a non-fiction account of a car accident that left his wife a bed-ridden quadriplegic. After waking from a coma she used a communication aid called “Let’s Chat” and asked her husband to kill her. The book is based on her machine messages, and the couple’s court battles to win for her the right to die. In 2012, national broadcaster NHK turned the heartrending story into a TV documentary.

 

Japan does not have an aid-in-dying facility because euthanasia is illegal and considered homicide. Many patients might want to have this option, but here there is no Dr. Death – as U.S. pathologist and euthanasia activist Jacob “Jack” Kevorkian (1928-2011) was known – and there is nothing like Dignitas, a Swiss clinic that provides physician-assisted suicide using lethal doses of medication.

 

Medical ethics and the law have been outpaced by rapid advances in medical technology that are prolonging and in many cases improving the quality of life. But these developments are also creating more terminally ill patients caught in the unpleasant limbo between life and death.

 

Due to Japan’s very rapidly graying society, this is a growing challenge that lawmakers here really must face, starting with providing a legal framework for living wills and “do not resuscitate” orders so that patients, their families and their doctors can begin making decisions about death they can live with.

 

And, with proper safeguards, it is also time to legalize termination of medical care, and euthanasia, to respect the rights of individuals who seek death with dignity.

 

【Reference 2】

読売新聞

http://www.yomidr.yomiuri.co.jp/page.jsp?id=67132

 

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