Hello everyone, I’m Bas and I’m currently working on my thesis/research competence ASO Humane Wetenschappen on the relation between health and power for which I take a survey. Would you be so kind to take the time to fill it out?
**The situation:**
Three patients need a heart transplant to stay alive. However, only 1 heart is available, so only 1 of them can survive. It’s up to you to decide who gets the heart. I present you 5 different scenarios where the prognosis (prediction of success) is the same every time: the one who gets the heart will survive the surgery and will fully recover from it within 2 weeks.
**The patients:**
1. Filip Coopman is a 32-year-old man from Roeselare, Belgium and of exclusively Flemish descent. He’s 1.80 m tall (5’11) and weighs 110 kg (242.5 lbs). This gives him a BMI of 34 (Obesity Class 1). He does not immediately intend to try and lose weight. Filip has never smoked a cigarette or taken drugs in his life. He only drinks alcohol at parties with family and friends. He has no smoking, drug or alcohol addiction.
2. Emile Aerts is a 32-year-old man from Roeselare, Belgium and of exclusively Flemish descent. He is 1.80 m tall (5’11) and weighs 74 kg (163.1 lbs). This gives him a BMI of 22.8 (healthy). Since the age of 19, Emile has smoked 1 or 2 packs of cigarettes almost daily. However, he does not immediately intend to stop this (bad) habit. This is the only addiction he has as he has no experience with other drugs and only drinks alcohol at parties with family and friends.
3. Stef Hermans is a 32-year-old man from Roeselare, Belgium and of exclusively Flemish descent. He is 1.80 m (5’11) and weighs 74 kg (163.1 lbs). This gives him a BMI of 22.8 (healthy). Stef has never smoked a cigarette in his life, but has been addicted to an intravenous drug since he was 19 (intravenous drugs are drugs that you inject into your blood through a needle). He does not immediately intend to stop this (bad) habit. He has no other addictions, because he only drinks alcohol at parties with family and friends.
The three patients are all white, Flemish, cisgender, heterosexual, Catholic and owners of a
successful bakery. This footnote is important to rule out that race/ethnicity, gender (identity),
sexual orientation, religion and social class played a role in making your decision.
***Note: These 3 patients are completely made up, including their names. I have no insight into medical records and I don’t know anyone called Filip Coopman, Emile Aerts or Stef Hermans. Nor are they based on real patients whose names I just changed.***
[This link](https://linktr.ee/oc.hum.wet) will bring you to a Linktree (if your device warns you about Linktree not being supported, you can ignore the warning because Linktree won’t do you or your device any harm) in which you first have to choose a language (Dutch or English) and then whether you want to fill out the long version (all 5 scenarios) or one/each scenario separately.
6 comments
What is the link with power exactly?
I´m pretty certain there are graphs and statistics specially made for these types of cases.
And also, from a medical point of view, probably the person with the closest match genetically to the donor, so least chance of rejections. The person who could take the load of immunity surpressants.
Aangevuld. Hopelijk is het wat duidelijk. Succes!
Your survey is bugged. BMI is not an indicator of individual health and was never meant to be used as such, it’s only useful for measuring populations.
Filip could be a bodybuilder and in the other guilt scenarios you spell out that the bad behaviour described in your patient definition is the cause of their heart failure, making Filip the obvious first choice candidate in all your scenarios.
You should have either added bodyfat percentage or stated that Filip weighed too much because he eats too unhealthy and never works out or something.
Very interesting take on medical ethics survey. I’m 100% statistics on this one: if you ruin your gifted organ again, you’re not getting a third.
As they are all listed as Catholic their god will decide on whether they live or die.
/s
I’m not sure which criteria for heart transplant and waiting lists exist. However, cardiovascular risk factors are generally agreed upon, and I believe these examples have a straightforward medical answer, all other factors being equal.
Smoking is a basic serious risk factor.
Intravenous drug use is a very serious risk factor for heart valve endocarditis, valve insufficiency, heart failure, sepsis, and with it septic emboli, kidney failure, HIV, hepatitis, etc… there’s a constant risk of overdose and premature death, and I’m pretty sure no society will waste a heart on a case like this.
BMI in itself is not a fundamental cardiovascular risk factor. It does increase risk of developing a major risk factor such as diabetes and hypertension, and a relatively lesser risk factor of blood lipids. But in itself, I don’t think BMI would be an absolute reason not to do it.
So I’m pretty sure most doctors would answer
Filip rather than Emile much rather than Stef who would never even be considered in any circumstance.