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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated
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To: jrhana who wrote (105762)3/24/2005 2:09:07 PM
From: jrhana  Read Replies (3) of 793896
 
Now that I've said that I want to make a few comments that I believe are germane about the concept of living wills and DNR from the viewpoint of an emergency room physician.

It often comes down actually to me in the end.

Imagine that I am working in a busy urban ER at 4 AM and someone comes and I have an acutely ill patient with severe chronic illness who needs to be placed on a respirator within a matter of minutes or die.

Remember I have never seen this patient and have to gather a huge amount of information quickly and perform a number of very quick actions.

Then somebody hands me a 20 page incomprehensible document full of legalese. That may be great for a court brief but does me absolutely no good. It just makes the waters murkier so to speak.

If DNR is what you want I need to see that in big letters on the first page or a separate document. DNR I can understand in one second, and I now know what to do.

If you have elected to have someone else make the decision based on the circumstances then please make that very clear and give me a current phone number. And maybe even give me a second option in case I cannot reach the first.

On top of this please make these papers readily available. I cannot tell you how many times I patient is either intubated (placed on respirator in effect) by either me or by fire rescue prior to arrival because we have been told the patient is a "full code" only have to someone very upset show up an hour later with the papers and very upset. Well you know, too late and too bad. We have to (as they have said) err on the side of life also.
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