Killer+Nurses

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 * Charles Cullen: Nurse Charged In Deaths**

Hanley, Robert and McFadden, Robert. //Nurse Charged in Death; Says He Killed Others //. New York Times: Article Dec. 16, 2003. Web. thetruthaboutnursing.org. June 15, 2016

Hanley’s and McFadden’s article really dives into the specifics of what is deemed compassionate mercy killings by nurses as motive for murder. Nurses encounter death and its effects face to face even more so than family members as they actually are a part of the end of life cycle on a 24 hour daily basis. They witness and minister to the patient’s emotions, fears, needs, requests, intimate personal thoughts, share in their confessions, regrets, joys, mistakes, and overall life lived. Most family members are not as close to the patient during those stages as nurses. Nurses are the first in flight in being called to fight in the war against death. They spend more time with the desperately critically and terminally ill than any other medical professional, including the physician. Not all medical professionals would agree on this, especially doctors, as acknowledging such a truth would diminish how much of a role physicians and or higher educated medical professionals actually play in the patient’s physical, emotional, and mental health and healing process. This article discusses how a nurse, Charles Cullen, took the lives of 30-40 patients claiming he was ending their suffering and pain. His account of how working in a profession that sees death every day all day, tremendously increased his compassion for those he decided were suffering too much and too severely, ultimately leading him to believe he had the right and the means to end their lives without permission or any accountability. In this writing, covering the potential for so many unique aspects of death’s effects on nurses, one could spend a lifetime researching the maze of it all, but narrowing down specifically how death’s knock at the door of a person’s life can significantly change and hugely effect the scope of multiple lives so personally and professionally, just through one person in the nursing profession, is quite profoundly interesting and disturbing!

Psychology is a huge factor in nursing. The plan to use the information in this segment for the research paper is to explore whether or not the constant exposure to death is a determining psychological contributor to breeding nurse mercy killers and killings. This case was one of the most widely acknowledged events in the history of the medical profession of nursing. It brought the industry to its knees and provoked the first celebrity like, man hunt type of investigated look into a quiet, well respected, unquestionable, implicitly trusted, and most nurtured position in the entire medical community. The confessions of this nurse are critical as he provides his account and reasons for his actions. Diving into his personal life, history, and culture all portrayed a gruesome picture of reality, which was and still is, that he was not and still is not the only person of his kind. His story alone is enough to conclude that it cannot be left out this forum specifically for the type of research paper topic chosen.