On Death and Dying: Know Your Status

Her name is Beatrice, an 86-year-old patient on the oncology ward at my hospital. I am standing over her body, hands on her chest, rhythmically moving up and down to pump blood from her heart to the brain and the rest of her organs -- her ribs cracking beneath my weight with each downward push. At the head of the bed, an anesthesiologist is attempting to guide a breathing tube through the mouth and into the trachea to deliver air into her lungs. I look over and see blood coming up through the tube. Almost 4- minutes passes -- several rounds of chest compressions, electrical shocks to the heart, injections of different medications, and liters of fluid transfused through IV lines -- finally, my senior resident declares that Beatrice has passed away. The monitor is turned off, the anesthesiologist stops pumping air into the lungs, and I take my hands off of Beatrice's frail body. I walk away in silence. Outside of Beatrice's room, her family, grief stricken and shocked by the traumatic events that unfolded over the past 40 minutes are told that their wife, their mother, their grandmother, has passed away. As I walk back to take care of my other patients, I think to myself, "Beatrice should have been Do Not Resuscitate/Do Not Intubate (DNR/DNI)." However, Beatrice was Full Code, a status that was either given as a default or decided on when she was admitted into the hospital; a decision that was made either by Beatrice and/or her family members without a complete knowledge of wh...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news