Is Personalized Medicine Achievable to Non-educated and Educated People? (Essay Sample)

Name Course Instructor Date Is Personalized Medicine Achievable to Non-educated and Educated People? Historically, the practice of medicine has been reactive. In that case, health complications are treated ones they have set in. That is to say, a drug that is used in treating the disease is developed once the disease has developed. Technology has been improved and advanced exponentially so that personalized attention can be given to those who required medical attention (Miliano 572). The introduction of personalized treatments has not been smooth, it has been marred with challenges as some of the medical practitioners and even the patients themselves have been opposed to personal medicine. Literature Review Various ethical issues have been raised against personalized medicine. Three classes of issues have been suggested and they include protection of privacy, autonomy and access to personalized medicine by the patients. Protection of patient's privacy ranks the key ethical issue that has raised endless debates in different parts of the world. Effective measures that protect patients' privacy have not been put in place and perhaps this is one of the reasons why most individuals have been hesitant to assume the personalized medical care. A patient has exclusive rights to keep information about his/her health conditions privately. Sadly enough, the personalized care may deprive them of that right. For example, patient's genetic composition risks being exposed by those who provide personalized health care. No form of insurance protects a patient from such exposures. If a patients information is collected for use in profiling risks that people face, the patient and his/her family will have their information exposed. Another privacy issue that is associated with personalized medicine relates to autonomy (Miliano 458). Different scholars have argued that the introduction of personalized medicine deprives the patients of the freedom to select that should happen or what should be administered to them. For example, the question of the use of patient's information is a matter or autonomy rather than privacy. It seems fine to ask a person to contribute information for use on data profiling or diagnosis in return for service to them e.g. treatment. In the real sense, asking a person to contribute information in return for treatment amount to the deprivation of freedom of choice. Larry Smarr (Mark 2012) asserts that is like forcing a person to do something that he does not enjoy doing in return for something good. The practitioner of such acts imposes pressure on the unsuspecting person. While arguing for this, the conduction of research studies that calls for the use of medical information should be approached in such a way that agreements are not presented as conditions. The participants should not be subjected to undue influence whatsoever. Incentives are tempting always and for the case of ill people, they are more than willing to offer anything so long as they will get treatment or any assistance that will better their health. The last ethical issue that is evident from the discussion on personalized medicine is the cost. Health care provision is expensive and only a few individuals can afford it. The present day world has more than 45 million people who lack health insurance (Cuijpers 342). Moreover, a good number of individuals who possess insurance covers are covered for the basic health. In conclusion, a good number of us lack sound insurance covers and this means a lot of work should be carried out in the health service. Personalized health care is expensive and it cannot be enjoyed by most individuals including some of those who have insurance covers. Before personalized care can be administered, there are complex questions that need to be answered. First of all, can everyone access the personalized medicine? How with the three ethical issues be addressed? Is it an attainable goal? Some scholars are opposed to the idea of relying on a computer during disease diagnosis. They assert that the computer is not always accurate and it can result in the derivation of wrong conclusions about a health concern. As a result, wrong medication may be administered which may cause loss of life. Those who oppose basing on this issue explain that a computer is similar to an airplane. Plane manufacturing requires the skills and experience of different types of people but surprisingly, countless cases of planes crashing have been reported in different corners of the world. To them, the decision should be made by doctors who have undergone training instead of leaving it to programmed equipment i.e. computers. Computers work under the operation of computer scientists and information technologists. A doctor hardly possesses such skills and this means that poor results will be generated from the computer. Data Analysis To cement the argument against personalized medicine, it was necessary to gather information from different types of people. Objective interviews were held between the researcher and medical doctors and computer scientists. Two medical doctors, a technologist and computer scientist gave their opinions about the topic. In their response, the medical doctors were totally against this suggestion. They argued that a personalized medicine reduces the work and responsibility of the doctor by making them be consultants. They suggested that if the doctors are relied upon as consultants only, they will hardly exploit their career to its full potential as some of the work will be done by the computers. The doctors also suggested that the quality of medical care will drop since no room for further research will be created. Finally, the doctors endorsed the privacy issues by mentioning that patients' privacy and autonomy will be lost and this is against the principles of health care provision. The technologist and the computer scientist had no different opinion. They argued that they will be trained to provide assistance in the medical field while they lack the medical background. The experts also mentioned that computers need to be updated regularly and if they are not, they will not provide accurate results. The computers process data out of information that is fed to them i.e. they cannot generate raw data on their own. They suggested that if the program should work, different groups (computer scientists, doctors and technologists) should come together as the success of the program demands support from all sides. Having analyzed the data that I collected from the interviewees, my responsibilit...