How would posters feel about him pressuring the family to adopt a DNR because she was terminal? We would all be horrified at that prospect. Why should the opportunity to choose life be thought of as a punishable offense? You can always undo ignoring a DNR. You cannot undo the alternative.
share It was the patient's choice to have a DNR. These doctors have got to stop playing God. They're doing it again right now with the guy with the machine in his heart he wants it out but Dr. Choi wants it to stay in. Patients need to have a voice in their own treatment. I would rather be dead than have to live like some of these people on here.
The last couple episodes have made me realize it's time for me to get my own DNR.
Will has to understand it's the patient right to not be revived.
shareI would rather be dead than have to live like some of these people on here.
Okay, so she got a 'wrongful life' and she resents not being dead, why doesn't she just commit suicide then?
A lot of people consider suicide a sin and just because she has a DNR doesn't mean she wants to actively kill herself. She wants to die in peace not hooked up to machines. Dr. Halstead took that from her. Our pets get more compassion when it's their time than human beings do. I guess some have forgotten that oath "First do no harm".
Thankfully when my husband succumbed to his cancer he was in hospice and their only goal was to keep him comfortable until he passed.
"Vulgarity is no substitute for wit".
just because she has a DNR doesn't mean she wants to actively kill herself.
First, the pharma rep said that the patient wasn't experience adverse side effects. She couldn't disclose - and probably didn't know - if her cancer was responding to the experimental treatment.
Second, she's in a hospital. How do you propose she gets a bottle of pills to swallow and arrange not to be found for a few hours?
I was under the impression that it was discovered she was selected to take a placebo and not the actual experiment.
shareThere's a reason why I did not want to be a doctor, even though everyone said I had the skills. I would make it personal, with every patient. That is what Halstead is doing. Between Halstead & Choi it's not that they are bad doctors, but while life matters, so does the patients' wishes. But that seems to be the thing about the "Chicago" shows is that the characters skirt the lines a lot. Well, sometimes they definitely go over.
shareIn the real world, as a resident, he would have been fired immediately and likely would never be able to practice medicine again. He would never be able to get into another residency and would essentially be black listed from the medical field. Ignoring a DNR is serious malpractice.
shareWhat is a life where you can't leave the hospital, constantly hooked up to tubes, and having to eat through a feeding tube. If you know you're going to die, it's better to spend your last months enjoying the world with the people closest to you, instead being restricted to a bed in a hospital while your loved ones watch you slowly wither away.
That's why the wife had the DNR in the first place. And what she's going through right now is the exact reason she had a DNR. Will took her choice away from her. She can't spend time with her family. She's suffering in a hospital due to a doctor's hope that miracle drug will be the one in a million chance that saves her.
She told Will she was done. She was done getting her hopes up. She had tried other measures, and she had finally accepted that she was going to die.
Memphis Raines: I'm a little tired, a little wired, and I think I deserve a little appreciation!
What is a life where you can't leave the hospital, constantly hooked up to tubes, and having to eat through a feeding tube. If you know you're going to die, it's better to spend your last months enjoying the world with the people closest to you, instead being restricted to a bed in a hospital while your loved ones watch you slowly wither away.
Great point, KDTfiles6. Is Halstead going to pay their bills? People should have a right to have their DNR and other wishes respected. We went through this situation with my grandmother more than a decade ago. She suffered a heart attack on her 86th birthday; she was a long-time smoker, so it was amazing she had lived that long. Tests revealed 85% blockages. Our family and my grandmother accepted the news, but some doctor tried to talk us into all kinds of treatments, including surgery. We explained there was a DNR and that my grandmother didn't want any extraordinary measures. They let her leave about a week later; a week after that, she suffered a final attack in her assisted-living apartment while making her bed. That was a far better outcome than making her suffer through some prolonged treatments.
Put puppy mills out of business: never buy dogs from pet shops!
"You can always undo ignoring a DNR."
How? By killing the patient?
You don't know when they'll arrest again. You could be condemning them to weeks, months of suffering that they did not agree to, or forcing them to commit suicide (which is a horrible way to go).
no, but let them 'go' the next time. you can't undo the result if you follow a DNR order.
shareA DNR is compassionate. Most doctors themselves have standing DNR orders. Most lay people don't, because they have very unrealistic expectations of CPR outcomes. The fact of the matter is, resuscitation is not what years of medical TV shows, and public service announcements for CPR have presented it to be.
Very few people who survive chest compressions ever recover enough to leave the hospital, and those are only the very young, or very healthy, when CPR was started almost immediately after the heart stopped.
Most of the people who survive it and do wake up are in horrible pain from broken ribs and severely bruised lungs, and have to remain on a machine to breathe, so they don't even get to talk to their family, if they ever wake up at all. A large percent are substantially to severely brain-damaged from lack of oxygen.
Critical Care Reflections of a Male Nurse - Shall I break your ribs now? The myths of CPR
http://critcare-reflectionsofamalenurse.blogspot.com/2012/09/shall-i-break-your-ribs-now-myths-of-cpr.html
CNN: Un-extraordinary measures: Stats show CPR often falls flat
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/10/health/cpr-lifesaving-stats/
In real life it's much worse than what they show on tv. My daughter told me a story about a patient she had in the MICU, in late stage alcoholic liver disease. He couldn't stop drinking, so he wasn't on the list for a new liver, so it was just a matter of time before he died.
One day he started crashing, and she told me how she ordered a bag of this and a bag of that, about 6 bags of different fluids to stabilize him. I asked "So you saved his life?" She says "No, I stabilized him so I could call the family, mainly so he wouldn't code and then we'd have to use heroic measures to save his life because he didn't have a DNR."
The family came and she explained to the wife how it would be if they had to resuscitate him. They'd have to do chest compressions, which would break his ribs and sternum, then they'd have to intubate him, and then he'd still die, but he'd be in terrible pain the whole time if he was conscious at all, and he'd be unable to speak.
So the wife signed the DNR and he died a peaceful death talking and hugging in the bosom of his family a couple of days later.
Most doctors have DNRs.
I never thought about the after affects of strenuous cpr. having them pointed out has given me a new perspective. I stand corrected. halstead WAS wrong.
shareHalstead was wrong. There's not even any gray area here. He might have meant well, but he violated her rights and ended up causing her unnecessary and prolonged suffering. He didn't have a right to take that decision away from her.
share