The NY Times with an article on who should get the final say on DNR orders. The public sometimes may be misinformed about the effective of CPR from TV:
Some studies show that the long-term survival for hospitalized patients given CPR is about 15 percent; some find even smaller percentages. But according to a 1996 article in The New England Journal of Medicine, the long-term survival rate on TV medical dramas for patients given CPR was 67 percent.
This is a more common scenario:
The patient, only 35, had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years. Recently, he had developed septic bedsores and pneumonia. His kidneys were failing, and despite the feeding tube, he was losing weight. Now he was in cardiac arrest. He was dying.
But the young staff doctor had no choice. The patient’s relatives, convinced that the man could communicate, had insisted that all revival efforts be made. So the doctor gave the patient a few mouth-to-mouth breaths, climbed on the bed and began vigorous chest compressions, trying cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
The patient was intubated, shocked with electric paddles and injected with epinephrine. Blood spurted as a central line was inserted into the large vein in his groin to administer medicine and fluids. EKG electrodes were placed on his arms and legs: streams of paper spilled over the floor, as the hospital room filled with people and shouted orders.
After 15 minutes, the doctors called the time of death.
