Not unexpected, but chilling – now the academics are proposing that doctors decide who will receive CPR and who will not, depending, among other things, on whether resuscitating the patient is cost effective.
Do Not Resuscitate Orders: Time for Another Change
Walk through almost any medical intensive care unit in the country and you will encounter patients with terminal diseases who received CPR despite having had no chance of meaningful recovery from their conditions.
Alarmed at this situation, a group of end-of-life specialists wants to transform how physicians approach the issue of resuscitating severely ill patients. In an era of misused medical technology and rising health care costs, especially at the end of life, we should listen.
An article, which appears in the March 7, 2012 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, proposes giving physicians more authority in restricting cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) from patients they do not believe would benefit. more
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