Improved CPR results and forced DNR decisions

The following is an excerpt from the recent blog article by Wesley Smith concerning his testimony in Texas opposing Senate Bill SB 303 that would make DNR decisions the sole right of doctors, without needing to consult. Texas doctors are moving the same direction as the "doctors" in the Rasouli case in Canada who are demanding the unilateral right to decide to withdraw life-sustaining treatment or care.

Wesley Smith

Smith's article is titled: Improved CPR results and forced DNR decisions.

Smith wrote:

A new study shows improved results from CPR. From, “New Data to Consider in DNR Decisions,” by Judith Graham in the New York Times:

What has not been clear is what happened to older hospital patients who left the hospital after a cardiac arrest. Now a new study in The New England Journal of Medicine of 6,972 elderly people who survived in-hospital cardiac arrests between 2000 and 2008 gives some answers. A year after exiting the hospital, 58.5 percent of these older patients were still alive. Of this group, 48 percent had little or no neurological impairment, while 52 percent had moderate or severe neurological damage. Forty percent of older patients who survived CPR returned to life at home; the remaining 60 percent went to nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities or hospices.

And some of that data is more than ten years old, a long time in the medical field in which advancements come exponentially. Indeed, I am reading a fascinating book entitled Erasing Death, which is, among other issues, about the vast improvements in rehabilitation science and how innovative approaches are leading to amazing recoveries with restored function in people who would once have been “not only merely dead, but really most sincerely dead,” as the Wizard of Oz song lyric had it.

Judith Graham

Graham quotes a physician who properly notes that the issues of CPR and DNR are for patients to decide:

Older people and their families may want to use findings from this report in discussions about end-of-life care and preparing advance directives, which can include “do not resuscitate” orders.“I think physicians should discuss these results with patients and ask what their wishes are should their hearts stop,” Dr. Chan said. Unfortunately, there is no research on how elderly survivors of cardiac arrest rate their quality of life and whether they would choose resuscitation again if they had the opportunity, he noted. 

“One of the most important questions to ask is, what is the older person’s current level of functional ability and cognitive status,” Dr. Abella said, observing that “elderly patients with good pre-cardiac arrest function tend to do much better. If an older patient is cognitively intact and in reasonably good health, he or she might want to consider allowing resuscitative care,” Dr. Abella said. “But ultimately, this is a very personal, individualized decision.”

The DNR decision should be the patient’s, not the doctor’s or that of strangers meeting in a secret ethics committee deliberation!

Texas supporters of SB 303 claim they only want to prevent patient suffering. Fine. But I also think this has a lot to do with money. ... I am not so sure that improved resuscitation results for elderly and other expensive patients will be a welcomed development among our Health Care Technocratic would-be overlords.