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  3. Death is a difficult subject for anyone, but Americans want to talk about it less than most. They have a cultural expectation th

Death is a difficult subject for anyone, but Americans want to talk about it less than most. They have a cultural expectation th

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问题     Death is a difficult subject for anyone, but Americans want to talk about it less than most. They have a cultural expectation that whatever may be wrong with them, it can be fixed with the right treatment, and if the first doctor does not offer it they may seek a second, third or fourth opinion. Legal action is a constant threat, so even if a patient is very ill and likely to die, doctors and hospitals will still persist with aggressive treatment, paid for by the insurer or, for the elderly, by Medicare. That is one reason why America spends 18% of its GDP on health care, the highest proportion in the world.
    That does not mean that Americans are getting the world’s best health care. For the past 20 years doctors at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice have been compiling the "Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care" , using Medicare data to compare health-spending patterns in different regions and institutions. They find that average costs per patient during the last two years of life in some regions can be almost twice as high as in others, yet patients in the high-spending areas do not survive any longer or enjoy better health as a result.
    Ira Byock is the director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Centre. His book is a plea for those near the end of their life to be treated more like individuals and less like medical cases on which all available technology must be let loose. With two decades’ experience in the field, he makes a good case for sometimes leaving well alone and helping people to die gently if that is what they want.
    That does not include assisted suicide, which he opposes. But it does include providing enough pain relief to make patients comfortable, co-coordinating their treatment among the different specialists, keeping them informed, having enough staff on hand to see to their needs, making arrangements for them to be cared for at home where possible—and not officiously keeping them alive when there is no hope.
    But it is not easy to decide when to stop making every effort to save someone’s life and allow them to die gently. The book quotes the case of one HIV-positive young man who was acutely ill with multiple infections. He spent over four months in hospital, much of the time on a ventilator, and had countless tests, scans and other interventions. The total bill came to over $ lm. He came close to death many times, but eventually pulled through and has now returned to a normal life. It is an uplifting story, but such an outcome is very rare.
    Dr Byock’s writing style is not everybody’s cup of tea, but he is surely right to suggest better management of a problem that can only get worse. As life expectancy keeps on rising, so will the proportion of old people in the population. And with 75m American baby-boomers now on the threshold of retirement, there is a limit to what the country can afford to spend to keep them going on and on.
The central idea of Ira Byock’s book is to appeal to the hospital to______.
选项 A、save every life with every possible means
B、help people to die if that is his/her will
C、make people feel comfortable in their remaining hours
D、consider whether the cure is worthwhile before conducting it
答案C
解析 本题考查文章中提到的一个医务工作者兼作家伊拉.比约克的观点。他的观点主要在文章第三段和第四段中详细阐述。伊拉.比约克是美国达特茅斯希契科克医疗中心姑息疗法的主管。他认为如果病人只是希望安安静静地离开，那么医院就应该尽量满足病人的愿望。根据这句话，我们首先可以将[A]选项排除。第四段第一句话明确指出姑息疗法并不包括帮助病人自杀，伊拉.比约克也反对自杀(That does not include assisted suicide，which he opposes)。因此[B]选项也是错误的。姑息疗法的主要目的在于帮助那些已到生命尽头的人感觉舒适一些，例如为病人提供足够的镇静剂以缓解其痛苦，为病人提供上门服务，当大限到来之时，不将病人强留于世等，因此，[C]选项是正确的。[D]选项的说法具有一定的迷惑性，伊拉.比约克希望医院尊重病人的意见，不要一味给病人提供效果甚微的治疗，但并不是建议医院在展开医疗之前都先做一个成本效益分析，然后据此判断哪些病人值得救，哪些不值得救。
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