So after three apnea tests (all verifying brain death), the cholinergic tests (all verifying brain death), several eeg's (all verifying for brain death) the doc refuses to declare the patient brain dead becasue he may or may not have seen some minute possible, (most likely imagined) millimeter of eye movement. No shit. So we keep the dead guy alive on a vent, all the while giving the wife false hope, and at the same time maxing out her Visa.
We here in Neuro icky u hate this. We begin to hate the paitent. We totally hate the doc. And no one has the balls to over rule the doc and walk in to the wife and say "dammit, man's dead - pull the frggin' plug." For twenty seven days we play this hellish game - only to finally transfer him today to a long term care unit. Can you believe that?
Wht the hell does the doc need to verify brain death??? A friggin banner over the guys head? Does he need the patients ghost to come tap him on the shoulder? Does God himself need to come down and tell him to knock it off?
And what is really chilling is this is a new doc, now working in Neuro a lot (where, by the way there is a LOT of death and end of life decision making) - and apparantly a psycho doc who has end of life issues . God help all his patients from now on.
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2 comments:
Sorry for you all. Thought brain death exam by 2 MDs was required. Is that a state by state thing??
I believe you have huge potential with the banner idea. I would so buy stock in that.
That sucks. Seriously, that just sucks. What an asshole.
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