We are posting this on behalf of one of our readers, a psychology student, who needs respondents for a research project. He is looking for the truth – what would you do? There is no right or wrong answer, he is only interested in what your answer would be and why.
Case:
You have one heart and one liver. You have four patients; all of which needs both organs to survive. In short you can only save one of the four lives. Who would you give the organs to?
Scenario:
Patient 1: A doctor, and a colleague of yours, who is both successful at his job and contributes to his work place. You have known each other for years. But; he has a history of domestic violence towards his wife and children and has at one occasion, supposedly, sexually assaulted his partner.
Patient 2: A heavy smoker and drinker who needs the transplant because his habits destroyed his first set of organs. He has a clear criminal record and has no history of unemployment. His job involves working with children and teenagers in the community to help them with whatever their problems might be and he is highly regarded by these children, some of whom have come to see him as a parent.
Patient 3: A reformed criminal convicted of murder that is just about to complete his prison sentence. In his defence the murder was ‘justified’, no other details are available. He plans to get into social work to help reform other criminals upon release.
Patient 4: A lower-class cleaner with a record of going in and out of employment. He doesn’t pay tax as he claims that he doesn’t believe his hard-earned money goes to support what he feels is important for society. He has no records of criminal activity and generally behaves in an orderly fashion.
Additional Information:
All the patients are in the same age range.
None of the patients display any sign of anti-social behaviour. Generally they are pleasant people.
Medically speaking all four patients has the same survival rate with the new organs – provided that they stick to a regime administered by the hospital.
Without the transplant surgery none of the patients will survive long enough for more organs to be found.
So:
Who would you give the organs to?
Why did this patient deserve the organs the most?
Why didn’t the other 3 patients deserve it as much?
Please, could you also let me know if you are male or female and your age?
