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End-of-life care: Pain control carries risk of being called a killer
AMA News ^ | April 16, 2012 | Kevin B. O'Reilly

Posted on 04/29/2012 4:46:29 PM PDT by Brian Kopp DPM

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1 posted on 04/29/2012 4:46:32 PM PDT by Brian Kopp DPM
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To: wagglebee

ping


2 posted on 04/29/2012 4:49:03 PM PDT by Brian Kopp DPM
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To: Dr. Brian Kopp; 185JHP; 230FMJ; AKA Elena; APatientMan; Albion Wilde; Aleighanne; ...
Moral Absolutes Ping!

Freepmail wagglebee to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.

FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
[ Add keyword moral absolutes to flag FR articles to this ping list ]


3 posted on 04/29/2012 4:55:13 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: Dr. Brian Kopp

It’s a fact. “Keeping them comfortable” with opiates and benzos inevitably kills them.. They’re gonna die either way. They might as well do so pain free.


4 posted on 04/29/2012 4:56:04 PM PDT by KoRn (Department of Homeland Security, Certified - "Right Wing Extremist")
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To: Dr. Brian Kopp

The only interesting aspect of the article is the curious attitude it takes, that all the accusations must surely be false and without merit.

From my own experience that is definitely not the case.


5 posted on 04/29/2012 4:58:14 PM PDT by Mount Athos (A Giant luxury mega-mansion for Gore, a Government Green EcoShack made of poo for you)
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To: Mount Athos; Dr. Brian Kopp
The only interesting aspect of the article is the curious attitude it takes, that all the accusations must surely be false and without merit.

The AMA is a very liberal organization and fully supportive of the culture of death.

6 posted on 04/29/2012 5:01:50 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: Dr. Brian Kopp

There will be no Death Panels. But there will be lots (and lots) of palliative care — especially for those patients who have no money and who rely on “free” medical care.


7 posted on 04/29/2012 5:10:05 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Like Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin has become simply a stick with which to beat Whites.)
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To: Dr. Brian Kopp

From the article: “... even if they have the secondary effect of speeding the dying process...”

That’s still killing a patient.

From conception to natural death.


8 posted on 04/29/2012 5:26:47 PM PDT by kitkat (Obama, ROPE and CHAINS.)
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To: Dr. Brian Kopp

No one who is sent to a hospice facility, comes out alive. It is a death house.

I went through this with my husband last year. One doctor said send him to hospice. So, I went to the hospice facility and found a patient goes there to die and if the patient needs emergency help to keep him/her alive, it doesn’t happen - the patient dies.

There was a “funeral home room” for funeral homes to come to talk to the family.

My husband was not going to this “death house”. Later, as I talked to doctors they told me that is what happens at hospice - the patient dies. Then, when he was in another hospital under the care of our family physican, I told him, “no hospice”. He said he would not do that to him. I found, with doctors who care about you, they would not use hospice for their family members.

Yes, my husband died, but he lived much longer than he would have if I had sent him to hospice and he got everything possible until he died so I know I did everything humanly possible to keep him alive. I did not abandon him to die in a hospice death house.

Hospice is a death house - that is what it was designed for - to die with no special act to save the person’s life. Give drugs until the patient dies and don’t do anything to keep the patient alive.

If anyone wants to contradict what I have written here, don’t bother. Just go into a hospice death house and die, but stop by their funeral home room to plan a funeral.

One final word - so Medicare doesn’t have to pay more money to keep you alive, hospice came into being, paid by Medicare, so you could die faster and Medicare wouldn’t have to pay more money to keep you alive. It’s one step away from Solient Green. I saved my husband from that kind of death.


9 posted on 04/29/2012 5:27:19 PM PDT by Marcella (Romney: for Abortion, homosexuality, same sex marriage - No to Romney)
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To: Gator113

I’m pinging you to read what I wrote here.


10 posted on 04/29/2012 5:30:47 PM PDT by Marcella (Romney: for Abortion, homosexuality, same sex marriage - No to Romney)
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To: Dr. Brian Kopp
New developments in end-of-life care — aggressive pain and symptom management (even to the point of unconsciousness), along with a greater willingness to withdraw advanced, life-sustaining treatments such as mechanical ventilation, dialysis, and artificial hydration and nutrition

This is the part where the author pivots from palliative care to killing. See how easily and effortlessly the transition is made? And his ultimate defense? "It's the standard of care now."

If 25% have been accused of murder or euthanasia by patients themselves, then something is very very rotten in Denmark.

11 posted on 04/29/2012 5:34:11 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: Mount Athos

I had an experience with a hospice nurse that left me distrustful of the system and the providers.


12 posted on 04/29/2012 5:39:02 PM PDT by kalee (The offenses we give, we write in the dust; Those we take, we engrave in marble. J Huett 1658)
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To: Dr. Brian Kopp; All

Perhaps I can speak to this subject from recent personal experience.

My husband died peacefully at home, under hospice care, on March 3rd of this year. He suffered terribly from symptoms that resembled Parkinson’s, but had many autonomic nervous system failure symptoms as well, that conventional Sinemet, and all the other wonder drugs did little or nothing to alleviate.

He stopped eating and drinking, and with the help of an experienced nurse here in our assisted living building, I worked up my courage to ask for hospice. It was difficult to convince the three doctors involved in his care to sign the papers, because (in my opinion) they refused to accept that the standard meds prescribed were not working, or were causing horrible side effects.

Taking a Parkinson’s patient to the emergency room is asking for a disaster. I learned that the hard way. He begged me not to be taken back to the emergency room, and asked that he never have to go into rehab again, after the the hospital stay, when he never got his meds on time, and was treated by whoever was on-call and knew nothing about how complicated his case was, because of the autonomic nervous system features.

Reading a chart for 3 minutes is not enough - and floor nurses do not understand the importance of timing the meds to the minute, and making sure that they are co-ordinated around the meals.

Anyway, when the last crisis happened, we didn’t take him to the hospital. He didn’t want to eat or drink, and was in severe muscular pain. He was given a very LOW dose of morphine, just enough to take the edge off his pain, and as much liquid as we could get him to drink, and we swabbed his mouth constantly.

He died peacefully, with me holding his hand, and no longer in pain. Hospice was wonderful to us both, and if I get some crappy disease, this is the way I want to go.

I miss him so much. I miss his voice, his mind, his wisdom, and his scent. Words cannot tell the depth of my grief at losing my lover, my best friend, and the father of my children, who was always there for us.

But, I respect the choices others make. There are no simple solutions to the illnesses that eventually end our lives, and we should be able to choose according to our preferences.

At the end of my husband’s life, morphine (again an extremely low dose) was the only thing that helped him with the unremitting pain. Thank God for it, for he was free of the torture.


13 posted on 04/29/2012 5:41:24 PM PDT by jacquej
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To: Dr. Brian Kopp; All

Perhaps I can speak to this subject from recent personal experience.

My husband died peacefully at home, under hospice care, on March 3rd of this year. He suffered terribly from symptoms that resembled Parkinson’s, but had many autonomic nervous system failure symptoms as well, that conventional Sinemet, and all the other wonder drugs did little or nothing to alleviate.

He stopped eating and drinking, and with the help of an experienced nurse here in our assisted living building, I worked up my courage to ask for hospice. It was difficult to convince the three doctors involved in his care to sign the papers, because (in my opinion) they refused to accept that the standard meds prescribed were not working, or were causing horrible side effects.

Taking a Parkinson’s patient to the emergency room is asking for a disaster. I learned that the hard way. He begged me not to be taken back to the emergency room, and asked that he never have to go into rehab again, after the the hospital stay, when he never got his meds on time, and was treated by whoever was on-call and knew nothing about how complicated his case was, because of the autonomic nervous system features.

Reading a chart for 3 minutes is not enough - and floor nurses do not understand the importance of timing the meds to the minute, and making sure that they are co-ordinated around the meals.

Anyway, when the last crisis happened, we didn’t take him to the hospital. He didn’t want to eat or drink, and was in severe muscular pain. He was given a very LOW dose of morphine, just enough to take the edge off his pain, and as much liquid as we could get him to drink, and we swabbed his mouth constantly.

He died peacefully, with me holding his hand, and no longer in pain. Hospice was wonderful to us both, and if I get some crappy disease, this is the way I want to go.

I miss him so much. I miss his voice, his mind, his wisdom, and his scent. Words cannot tell the depth of my grief at losing my lover, my best friend, and the father of my children, who was always there for us.

But, I respect the choices others make. There are no simple solutions to the illnesses that eventually end our lives, and we should be able to choose according to our preferences.

At the end of my husband’s life, morphine (again an extremely low dose) was the only thing that helped him with the unremitting pain. Thank God for it, for he was free of the torture.


14 posted on 04/29/2012 5:41:34 PM PDT by jacquej
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To: Dr. Brian Kopp

Its a TOTALLY a personal matter and the idea that the government has anything to do with it at any level is sickening beyond belief.


15 posted on 04/29/2012 5:44:32 PM PDT by Leep (Enemy of the Statist)
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To: Dr. Brian Kopp

“It still stings to hear that,” he said. But Dr. Casarett takes solace in knowing that he is doing right by his patients. “I tell other physicians that this is the standard of care, and that these sorts of medications and interventions are safe and effective.”

What is the definition of ‘effective’?

I think we know.


16 posted on 04/29/2012 5:52:18 PM PDT by credo 2
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To: Dr. Brian Kopp
My dad was under at Home Hospice ran by Mercy Health System {Catholic}. Nothing was going to change his outcome. He fought Prostate Cancer 10 years and the chemo had taken toll on mind and body in his final few months. He was on the newest known Chemo and it was worse than the cancer itself and plainly on all information provided by the manufacture it could possibly prolong life a few months. He decided to end treatment and let nature take it's course. This was about four and a half months into a six month expectancy he made his choice.

He was tired, sick, hurting, and wanting for the better world beyond. I gave him his meds. I checked myself allowed maximum and minimum strengths. He never no where near approached maximum on any pain or Benzo medication.

The truth was this. He was initially only given three years. His urologist was tops and contained it for about 8 years then the Oncologist became involved the last two. During that time and for his age they were truthful the likelihood was the cancer would not kill him but another unrelated matter would like heart attack etc. He was just otherwise a lot healthier than most for his age.

17 posted on 04/29/2012 5:55:29 PM PDT by cva66snipe (Two Choices left for U.S. One Nation Under GOD or One Nation Under Judgment? Which one say ye?)
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To: Marcella

Just so you know, my experience was so very different than yours. Please see my post above.

Hospice is used when all else fails, and “modern medicine” can’t stop the unrelenting devastation caused by some illnesses, and can’t relieve the pain and destruction caused by the same.

Please know that no-one from any funeral home came to talk with me. My husband and I decided on our own, to donate his brain to Harvard for research into these brain destructive illnesses, and his body to a local medical school for students to study.

No-one made a profit, and my beloved husband now is no longer suffering from a horrible disease that made the last decade of his life completely miserable.

Please do not generalize from your personal experience and opinion to all of us. You do not understand that some of us are dealing with intractable illnesses that modern medicine cannot alleviate or cure.


18 posted on 04/29/2012 6:04:47 PM PDT by jacquej
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To: credo 2

Because it is so new, and so raw for me, credo, I am leaping to a conclusion.

What do you think you know.


19 posted on 04/29/2012 6:07:38 PM PDT by jacquej
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To: jacquej

If no one made a profit how do they stay in business? Profit is not evil, it’s necessary and it’s good.


20 posted on 04/29/2012 6:14:19 PM PDT by Lurker (The avalanche has begun. The pebbles no longer have a vote.)
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