Posted on March 8, 2008 by John Steele
The reality in Illinois and the entire country for that matter is that people do not properly prepare for their death or incapacity. Why they do not is beyond the scope of this article. To make it easier for people to do such preparation, people now have the file in the blank, super easy to use, Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) Order. The purpose of these forms was to make it easy for people to indicate what they want to have happen in the event that they stop breathing. Here is why I don’t like DNRs.
There is a complete absence of human decision making taking place between the patient (who stands to lose their life), and the doctor (who is covering his malpractice insurance premium).
Then there was the article recently in which an elderly patient who was in a nursing home, but in great shape for her age made the mistake of signing a DNR. She was healthy, mobile, and had complete cognitive function. She went to lunch one day and started eating. Apparently a peanut got stuck in her throat and she started to choke. There were attendants standing around her, but they all knew that standard procedure in the nursing home was to ‘get’ everyone to sign a DNR at admittance. So they figured that she was not breathing and they could not give her the Heimlich maneuver, which almost certainly would have saved her life. The family settled out of court with the nursing home.
But the problems are obvious. There is no common sense in a “one size fits all” order like the DNR. There is no human in the chain of decision making to say “Wait a sec, that is not what my grandma meant!”. And most importantly, DNR’s cause deaths.
Is there a solution? Of course. Simply give a family member, friend, attorney, anyone the authority to determine what you would have wanted. Heck, I would rather have a stranger on the street determine when I would not want further help than a doctor who is concerned first and foremost with malpractice litigation, or a nursing home worried about a lawsuit. Sure, your representative could make a mistake and accidentally keep you alive, but at least you won’t suffer the ignominy of being killed by a peanut. Posted on March 8, 2008 by John Steele
The reality in Illinois and the entire country for that matter is that people do not properly prepare for their death or incapacity. Why they do not is beyond the scope of this article. To make it easier for people to do such preparation, people now have the file in the blank, super easy to use, Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) Order. The purpose of these forms was to make it easy for people to indicate what they want to have happen in the event that they stop breathing. Here is why I don’t like DNRs.
There is a complete absence of human decision making taking place between the patient (who stands to lose their life), and the doctor (who is covering his malpractice insurance premium).
Then there was the article recently in which an elderly patient who was in a nursing home, but in great shape for her age made the mistake of signing a DNR. She was healthy, mobile, and had complete cognitive function. She went to lunch one day and started eating. Apparently a peanut got stuck in her throat and she started to choke. There were attendants standing around her, but they all knew that standard procedure in the nursing home was to ‘get’ everyone to sign a DNR at admittance. So they figured that she was not breathing and they could not give her the Heimlich maneuver, which almost certainly would have saved her life. The family settled out of court with the nursing home.
But the problems are obvious. There is no common sense in a “one size fits all” order like the DNR. There is no human in the chain of decision making to say “Wait a sec, that is not what my grandma meant!”. And most importantly, DNR’s cause deaths.
Is there a solution? Of course. Simply give a family member, friend, attorney, anyone the authority to determine what you would have wanted. Heck, I would rather have a stranger on the street determine when I would not want further help than a doctor who is concerned first and foremost with malpractice litigation, or a nursing home worried about a lawsuit. Sure, your representative could make a mistake and accidentally keep you alive, but at least you won’t suffer the ignominy of being killed by a peanut.
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