Death and Dying by Rosamond Rhodes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Death and Dying by Rosamond Rhodes - Essay Example From biological point of view, death is marked by a point where the entire or a part of the organ system ceases to work. Again, from a social point of view, death is marked by the point where a physician or a socially authorized person, after assessing a body, declares it dead. Moreover, from a moral point of view, death is that point where a person ceases to be a person i.e. when he/she can no longer act out of reasons or when they cannot be held responsible for their behavior. There are many criteria on the basis of which a person can be declared dead. First is the cardiopulmonary criterion whereby, when a person stops breathing and his/her heartbeat stops as well, the person is declared dead. This criterion has been followed by many organized religious bodies across the globe as a standard for declaring a person dead. Next is the brain dead criterion whereby a person is declared dead if his/her full brain cannot function and will never be able to function again. Studies have revea led that cardio respiratory death shortly follows brain death. Brain death, whereby a brain becomes permanently non functionary, has been accepted socially as a standard as good as the cardiopulmonary standard. The need to declare death on the basis of death of the brain has gained importance because it gives the physicians a perfectly legal and social sanction to declare a person dead, maintain the dead body using technology and remove the transplantable organs in a way such that it leads to a better functioning of the organs in the recipient. The third and most controversial criterion is the cortical death criteria. Cortical death is where a person is declared dead on the basis of the disability of a person to function as a person. Individuals who have lost cortical functions, as argued by some physicians and bioethics, have lost their capacity to feel and thus have lost everything that makes life worthwhile. Under this standard, people who are in a persistent vegetative state or those who are suffering from permanent coma can be declared dead. According to the author, by following this criteria of declaring a person dead, a scenario which would be physically, mentally and economically challenging for both patient and his/her loved ones can be avoided. Moreover, given the scarce medical resources, a significant amount of these resources can be saved by shifting them from patients in the persistently vegetative state to the treatment of those who have moral existence.2 But the reason behind the controversy surrounding this third criterion lies in the fact that different people perceive life in different ways. Whether a person should endure pain, humiliation or prolonged unconsciousness or not, is an individual’s own attitude/preference. The patients who are in an active state can make their own decisions by accepting or refusing to undergo a treatment. But for those who cannot make these decisions on their own, a person very chose to him/her takes thes e healthcare related decisions on his/her behalf. A person can, in advance choose a person whom he/she

International Accounting in Colombia (South America) Research Paper

International Accounting in Colombia (South America) - Research Paper Example The desire to keep abreast with the information needs that globalization brought about, motivated Colombia to adopt these standards. In the whole of South America, Colombia has the most advanced accounting system, having incorporated the accrual basis of accounting in its Public Sector Accounting Standards. Accounting profession entails the process of communicating financial information of an organization, a corporation, or a business entity to the stakeholders and other interested parties. This communication serves to ensure that those stakeholders who do not have any accounting or financial knowledge gets to understand the financial position of the entity and can thus participate in decision making regarding the entities financial issues(Neal,125). The role of accounting profession therefore is to look into all transactions of the entity and ensure they are accurate, and then report this information to the entity’s stakeholders, who can use this information for their decisio n-making purposes. In Colombia, a law enacted in July 2009 guides accounting regulations. This law requires that the national accounting standards of that country tally with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). ... A good example is the fact that Columbia has shortened the requirements of the IFRS into very brief provisions and directions, although they appear explained in many pages. This shortening of the IFRS requirements comes with elimination of some of its sections. A good example of this, is the elimination of the Disclosure requirements of the IFRS in the Columbian accounting standards and practices (Elliot,7). Most notable is the fact that there are no legally binding financial statement audit standards requirements in Colombia (Pixley,4). Any auditing practice and procedures in Colombia occurs according to the Colombian GAAP and not in accordance with the requirements of the IFRS. The general requirements of IFRS auditing requirement practices and procedures have been reduced to a one-page guideline. The requirements of the IFRS general auditing standards such as undertaking of audit of books of accounts of an entity by an independent auditor has been eliminated in the Columbian audit guidelines (Willies). The laws of Columbia does not provide for any development and issuance of auditing standards. Thus, Columbian organizations, business entities, and corporations determine the nature of auditing practice and procedures to appear in their books of accounts. The law does not bind these practices and procedures. The difference between accounting in Columbia and in the USA is in the fact that, while in the USA all accounting practices follows the provisions and requirements of the IFRS, in Columbia, there are issued decrees that requires the local entities to apply the IFRS only voluntarily (Pixley,4). Thus, observation of the IFRS standards of accounting is not a requirement in Columbia. Better still, even when the local entities in