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Thursday, May 3, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Health care issues
Restricting age on certain health care practices keeps doctors from using life-giving resources
aniel Callahan is calling for the death of thousands.
According to Callahan, medical ethicist and author of "What Kind of Life? The Limits of Medical Progress," the United States should set an age limit for certain kinds of medical care in an effort to limit escalating medical costs.
"We will probably have to set a limit of one kind or another for all age groups," Cailahan said. "A society would . . . be well justified in the future to set an age limit on the public provision of expensive, life-extending, curative health care."
Instead, Callahan wants age cutoffs set for treatments such as bypass surgery, chemotherapy or other expensive drug treatments for patients older than 80 or 85.
Anyone with a terminal illness or injury should have the right to cut off treatment, but those who have not requested such action have the right to treatment as much as anyone else, despite age.
Callahan said that he was looking for a
tradeoff for more caring medicine rather than curing medicine. What does this mean?
If the United States were to go along with Callahan's theory, what would stop doctors from refusing care to newborns who came into the world with problems that required curative treatment rather than caring treatment?
Callahan is discriminating against the elderly. To be fair with Callahan's theory, the United States would have to cut off such treatments for everyone, not just those 85 or above, or whatever "elderly" age is chosen. Newborns with curable problems would have to be disposed of, too.
Granted, as medical progress is made and life expectancy increases, medical costs will increase on the whole. However, setting an age limit for certain types of health care is discriminatory and unconstitutional. The United States must carefully consider this issue and avoid making the bad choice for health care that Callahan suggests.
Angela Baughman for the editorial board
Briefly Stated
- Seven years ago, the state had to cut budgets across the board. In 1990, it appears that it may happen again. The Kansas Legislature went on a shopping spree in 1989 and again this year. The result may be a reduction in state services. For KU that means even fewer classes, smaller faculty raises and no construction. When is the Legislature going to wise up and do its job? Once again, our voice in Topeka is falling on deaf ears and narrow minds.
Although Student Senate elections reflected greater interest this year, in the form of larger voter turnout, elections for class officers were disappointing. The elections were yesterday and turnout was low, showing a lack of student interest. If we don't care enough to vote for class officers, we cannot expect our voices to be heard and acknowledged when it comes to matters of importance in the future. Our voices need cry out to be heard.
Billboard problem
World would be better if signs became memories
Memories are wonderful things. Take, for instance, that marvelous piece of Americana known as the billboard. Once, a driver could race down a highway in a car with fins the size of surfboards, arm hanging out the window, wind whipping through the car, no fear of a federally mandated speed limit and advertising racing by. These were the days.
Those were the days before the environment and safety were much of a concern. Since then, automobiles have become safer, conservation has become an important buzz word, and the environment is more than something that was there for mere convenience. People have recognized that natural resources are not always replenishable and certainly not endless. Near the top of the list is lumber; saving trees
Enter the billboard, which consumes trees for the sole purpose of selling products to unsuspecting drivers. Some members of the U.S. Senate think this is a waste and have proposed the Visual Pollution Control Act of 1990, which would ban new billboards along federal highways and permit removal of existing signs.
Understandably, the advertising industry is not pleased with the bill. Its view, however, is short-sighted. Billboards, besides being distracting to drivers, are an enormous waste of natural resources and serve little purpose.
Billboards are part of the American past, and they should stay there.
Professors take heed: Apathy ruins students' opportunities
Daniel Niemi for the editorial board
o it's your senior year, you say?
Mine too. Well, actually it's my second one. I don't know, what are you going to do after graduation?
**tion?" If you have not yet taken part in this conversation, prepare yourself; you will during your senior year. And probably 150 times. For me, the hell has endled me of one of the lucky ones who managed to find a job while still in school. I realize that I am famous and well-known to the rule. Many of my friends who got out in four years are still on the hunt.
Brook Menees
I am writing, however, on behalf of all of the seemingly masochistic students who choose to pursue a higher degree immediately after finishing their undergraduate careers. My hat is off to all of you; I truly admire your dedication. I do not, however, admire the process you follow for admission to graduate schools. I learned about this long and complicated process through my best friend, who was applying to the top graduate schools in the field of communications. The process includes researching various graduate programs, sending requests for applications, typing forms that resemble tax returns, sending examples of undergraduate work, obtaining and sending recommendations from professors and waiting impatiently while your file goes through the
Guest columnist
If I were in charge of admission and a student made it through all of this, even without the GRE, I think I would accept him or her. As it turned out, however, the GRE was not even the most difficult part. As a matter of fact, she endured nearly the entire process without having a major nervous breakdown. What gave her the most trouble was securing simple letters of recommendation.
Now, before I get on my soapbox, I realize that professors are extremely busy folks. They are expected to do research and produce literature, prepare for and teach various classes, sit on University committees, participate in conferences, and every professor knows that he or she can expect to write a few letters here and there for students pursuing a higher degree. My
friend, realizing that they are busy people, asked three of her professors during the month of December to send recommendations to the schools where she applied. They all willingly agreed to do her this favor. After all, she is an excellent student and has a great deal of potential. All of them had plenty of time, no matter how busy they were, to write and send these letters. In fact, they had nearly three months to do it. Surely, she innoently thought, they could accomplish this simple request during winter break.
When she returned, she had no letters and gladly reminded them to be as expedient as possible. In March, she began to learn that her peers in the communications field began hearing from schools. My friend heard nothing. She called one of the universities to which she applied and was informed that her file was incomplete — one of her recommendations was absent. She immediately called that professor, and he told her that it must have gotten lost in the mail. He assured her that there was a way and if so, she methodical sigh of relief. Maybe it was not too late. You see, my friend must receive an assistantship, a scholarship with the obligation to teach as a teaching assistant, or she cannot attend graduate school.
The waiting began again, and her peers were beginning to receive offers. She then,
finally, received her first letter, and then another, from her schools. Each arrived with the same horrifying message -- FILE INCOMPLETE! The first major nervous breakdown set in she was taken enough! She then called each of the eight schools and sent her a same answer. And the kicker: Each school had already made its first-round offers.
Could the professor really have done this to her? Yes, he had. Here it was, the beginning of April, more than four months later, and still no letter. He could have simply copied a form letter eight times, but he did not even do that.
Why didn't she go elsewhere long ago, you ask? Well, she thought she could trust the head of the department. Does this professor realize that she has spent the past four years earning excellent grades and dreaming of a college degree in theseinations departments in the country? Does this individual take joy in personally messing with students' futures?
As it turned out, she was offered an assistantship despite an incomplete file at her third choice school. Unfortunately, she will never have the satisfaction of knowing she would have been accepted by her, let alone offered her an assistantship. If that had been the
case, she probably would have chosen differently. And that is truly a shame. To top it all off, each wasted application cost her about $45. Because of his laziness, insensitivity and general disregard for her future, she wasted a great deal of time, money and hard work.
The issue is simple. We, the students, realize that you, the professors, are busy people. The point is that if you are too busy to do a favor, just be honest and say so. We understand, really. However, no one has the right to commit to the favor and then, three months later, say, "It must have gotten lost in the mail." In doing so, you lie boldly and play irresponsibly with our futures. And in my opinion, neither a department nor the University of Kansas should tolerate this behavior from a "professional."
As I think of this man, a very applicable biblical passage that I learned a long time ago in Sunday School comes to mind. It goes something like this: "So because you are not supposed to kill and will spit you out of My mouth." Now I realize that the book of Revelations was not specifically written with certain professors in mind, but I think you get the point.
▶ Brook Menees is a Prairie Village senior majoring in French.
Other Voices
Michael R. Milken . . pleaded guilty to federal charges of securities fraud and conspiracy and agreed (nice of him) to pay fines and penalties of $600 million.
That amount of money would seem to be indicative of one of the most serious white-collar crimes of our time.
For the crime of this significance, lawyers say he faces a prison term that will not exceed five years.
The fines and penalties seem as stuff as the prospective term is lenient.
From the Westerly (R.I.) Sun, April 26.
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LETTERS to the EDITOR
Time to clean up
Segmentes of our society that are independent thrive best through cooperation. Such is the case with the University of Kansas and the city of Lawrence — with the University students and the citizens of Lawrence. An example of such cooperation is the annual spring
For those who can arrange it, the procedure for participation in news media are in the various news media, including the Kansan.
cleanup, which is sponsored by the Retired Executives Council of the Chamber of Commerce.
Paul H. Getto
The cleanup is timed to present the city most attractively for thousands of relatives of graduating students when they arrive for Commencement. Organized groups of all ages volunteer to pick up the litter in assigned public areas along the approaches and the trafficways within the city. Neighborhood associations rally residents to pick up and spruce up. Downtown Lawrence Inc. joins the effort. The campus takes on a special sparkle.
Students are urged through the Panhellenic Association and the
Interfraternity Council to beautify areas around organized houses and clean up around the apartments in which they live.
Litter is an a serious problem. We live in an age of disposables. Fast food shop managers have pledged to cooperate, but they are obviously limited in their control of how their containers are disposed of. If auto owners would keep and use litter bags in their vehicles, there would be no need for an annual campaign to clean up. Emphasis then could be placed on paint-up and fix-up.
Because of final exams, the
number of students who are able to assist with the cleanup of public areas is limited. However, all people can cooperate by cleaning their housing areas as well as using litter bags in their cars.
Member of the Retired Executives Council of the Chamber of Com-
CAMP UHNEELY
AT THE CHANCELLOR'S RECEPTION.
BY SCOTT PATTY