December 2, 2017

AOW #11-Responding to "A man's tattoo left doctors debating whether to save his life" By  AJ Willingham

December 2, 2017

This Week's Focus: 

Rhetorical Précis 

Article Category: Medicine/Health

 Link to Article:  (December 2, 2017)

CNN writer for CNN Digital in Atlanta, AJ Willingham, in her article about health titled, "A man's tattoo left doctors debating whether to save his life" (December 2, 2017) debates whether a 70 year old should receive medical treatment at all due to the tattoo on his chest that states, "Do Not Resuscitate", which clearly states that he does not wish to be resuscitated. She supports her claim by providing two perspectives on whether they should revive him or let him die. Willingham first provides the perspective from a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, where a team of medical professionals from the University of Miami that didn't want to honor the tattoo because there was no way to be absolutely sure that's what the man wanted. The doctors chose to treat the patient with antibiotics and other life-saving measures. The differing view was from an ethics consultant who believes that in the case of the man in the Florida hospital, the facility's ethics consultant said the doctors should honor the tattoo to respect the mans wishes. The outcome was that the social work department located a copy of the man's Florida Department of Health "out-of-hospital" do not resuscitate order, which supported the request on his tattoo. Eventually, a do not resuscitate order was issued, and the man died. AJ's purpose was to describe different perspectives on whether the man should've been revived or not to provide reasons why tattoo itself is a frequent topic or debate in the medical community. She establishes this by again, offering multiple viewpoints over the topic in order to induce curiosity onto her readers.