Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Hundreds of people are being asked to leave their homes this week because of potential mudslides. The rains continue, the ground is saturated and the water has no place else to go except down the hillsides. All week long our reporters have talked to residents who were ordered to leave and decided to stay. Their reasons for staying are varied- from the lady whose dog is elderly to the man who just knows nothing will happen to him.
I make no judgments about their decision. But it must be a sobering moment when a police officer insists you sign a waiver, stating that if you defy an order to leave, you’re on your own. I have covered firefighters my entire career, and personally I don’t think any of these heroes would turn their backs on someone who needs help, waiver or not.
Is it fair to risk the life of a rescuer who will inevitably come to get you if the worst happens? This is just one of the many moral dilemmas we’ve reported on this week.
In Haiti, doctors are choosing who will live and who will die. Earlier this week, I spoke with CBS News correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton who is in Haiti. She is an MD. Dr. Ashton told me she isn’t getting much sleep, because the decision for her to take a nap could mean someone else doesn’t get the chance to be treated by her and could die before she wakes up.
In June of 2008, I attended the commencement ceremonies of the medical school of Harvard University. My nephew Micah was in that graduating class. It was one of the proudest moments of my life. There was one moment that nearly brought me to tears- when the entire class of 2008 stood up and began to recite the Hippocratic Oath. It is believed to be written by Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine in the early 5th century. A modern version was written by a doctor in 1964. Here is one of my favorite lines:
“I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.”
Fortunately, more and more doctors are arriving in Haiti every day. And million of dollars in donations from ordinary people continue to come in, in spite of the recession. With the quake in Haiti, as with the rains here in SoCal, it’s the reaction of the people that is the most fascinating angle.
