“So if you’re the doctor, you let them lie there, screaming and writhing in pain, because you know that the amount of morphine or whatever, needed to relieve the pain, will kill them?”
Those who say, don’t know
Those who know, don’t say.
I know and I will say. No one will like it. No one.
I spent nearly a decade of my life in neurosurgery. Been there, done that. Got a shelf full of coffe cups. Used to have a closet full of scrubs. The mind set required had to be 100% affirmative. You had to counsel the family at or near the point of utter futility but until everyone was agreed you have to be “all in”. To get up at three AM after two hours sleep in the last 40 and go to the bedside as the ICP climbs into the 80s and the vent requires 15 cm to deliver any volume and try to “do some magic” is impossible otherwise. As much as I would rather not YOU deserve it.
To undercut this rationale, this philosophy of the “healing art” turns it into something none of us wants or has any use for. Mercy on a case by case basis when appropriate is justifiable and my conscience is clear. Accuse me of playing god, if you will but someone has to do these things. When my time comes I want to get as good as I gave. I want to be able to look my doctor in the eye and know that he is still “all in” if I am.