Posted on 04/12/2007 6:27:57 AM PDT by shrinkermd
My comment was made in the context of a "Impending Death", and that would mean hours/or days. Not weeks, months or years.
But you knew that. Your point is not valid.
I would view that as a serious ethical violation. If what you say is true, then the hospital is negligent regarding it's protocols or lack thereof, or the protocols are not being enforced.
You would have a valid grievance in my humble opinion.
How many hours?
It is rational to contemplate. However, on balance, I go with the "slippery slope" position. Using the strict brain death criteria has far less abuse potential. True brain death is not as rare as you suggested in an earlier post.
Practically speaking, the greater good you speak of is being diluted. Many of these organs are being transplanted into patients who, themselves, are "terminal." There is too much money changing hands with the current system.
One would think so. However, there is at least one "position statement" by a respected medical organization that endorses this process. If I can locate it in the next few days, I will provide a reference. Either way, this is being done now in many hospitals.
NO THEY DONT AND THATS AN IGNORANT REMARK!
Just my layman's opinion....
Yes this is correct. However, even now, patients not meeting the brain death criteria who are "donating" are mostly head injured patients. Patients with "terminal" conditions resulting from the failure of other organ systems rarely have organs that are suitable for transplantation.
So the difficulty lies mostly within the area of stoke patients who have suffered a great deal of damage to their autonomic nervous systems, yet do not meet the criteria of brain death.
I don't know how many patients this would add up to, but it would be smaller than I had thought.
Would that be a vague but correct assumption? The experiences that I personally have gone through in this area were connected mostly to cancer patients who died from the Chemo and their organs were shot as a result.
If we are only talking about a very small number of people, then your idea of a strict protocol seems quite reasonable under the circumstances.
Personally, if my condition was such that it was hard to tell whether or not I was really brain-dead, and I had a brain hemorrhage that made meaningful survival impossible (i.e. survival with awareness and with at least some ability to communicate), I’d a lot rather be finished off 11 days early and save the lives of many other people (along with providing restored vision to yet another person), than to be kept “alive” via various tubes and machines for 11 more days while losing the possibility of saving all those other people. Many years of several other people’s relatively healthy lives are worth more than 11 days of my life in a vegetative or semi-vegetative state with no realistic hope of improvement. In a free country, people ought to be free to make that choice via an advance medical directive.
Actually, I should have clarified. We haven’t signed on our driver’s licenses. In the event of an accident, we want each other to have a say say in whether or not we’re really “dead” or with no hope of recovery.
Sounds fine to me, but it should be subject to an advance directive from the patient (except in the case of minors, whose parents should have the right to make the call). I would choose to have my organs made available while they’re still in a condition that can save other people.
To be honest, I did not check the box either. I felt uncomfortable making that decision without context. Not because I don't believe in the organ program.
I discussed this with my wife, and we decided that we would make that decision, one for the other is possible, when the time arises, and not before. That is how we do things around my little domain.
Because before actual brain death occurs, the body often deteriorates physiologically to the point where organs are no longer functional and cannot have functionality restored. For one thing, circulation and oxygenation can be severely impaired for quite some time before brain death, because the body will prioritize getting oxygen to the brain.
This has been my experience.
The hospital is an institution of the state and is grouped in the dept of justice. The state has the power, not only of declaring death, but of setting the groundrules. The doctors are agents of the state. Oddly, the state also has the power to declare life, and that is also a legal decision that anybody feels free to disagree with but has no power in the matter.
See post # 22. The problem is that there is too much potential for abuse.
I’ll still donate when the time comes, even though friends claim I’m brain dead now. Travelin’ dudes like me need to be out and about in death as well as life.
This is why I refuse to be a donor. I want all decisions made about treating me to be based on my condition, not the viability of my organs for somebody else to take from me before I’m finished with them.
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