9:19pm July 17, 2014

“

“When I was admitted to a hospital for surgery, the admitting clerk asked me to sign a Do Not Resuscitate order. I asked what would happen if, having signed it, I stopped breathing because of a bad reaction to anesthesia.

“‘CPR would not take place,’ she replied. I did not sign the order. A few hours after surgery, still delirious from the anesthesia and post-surgical demerol, I had to fight off a social worker who wanted to force feed me a DNR. I mustered my strength and screamed, ‘I’m thirty years old. I don’t want to die!’”

”

— Joe Ehman (via madeofpatterns)

From the tags:

“#I have heard nurses joke about effective ways to get people to sign DNRs”

I have read a book by a nurse who talks about ways that nurses manipulate people into signing DNRs, DNIs, and similar orders.  For instance, when talking about defibrillator paddles, they’ll exaggeratedly act out what being shocked looks like, to scare the patients’ families into saying they don’t want that.  This nurse said that every ICU nurse he knew had a separate way to force or coerce people into signing these orders, and that they look down on people who “want everything done” as just not understanding what “everything” entails.

I’ve gotten that response myself, when I say I want everything done I get instant disdain and get treated like an idiot.

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