As a fellow RT, I have seen patients who are breathing on their own but have no normal brain funtion.
If the family wants them to be provided with all possible medical treatment I say fine, but if the patient cannot breathe on his own, no way.
Well, I don’t know how long you have been in the business, but even if you have been an RT for awhile, I have to ask you- Are you suggesting that you have a right to make such a decision for another? You have the right to decide another’s “quality” of life? How many family members have sought you out to ask you for your opinion? You are just doing a job and such patients are part and parcel of that job- you have no stake in the life or death of that person.
Are you one of those hotshots that stands around the bed referring to them as “gorks” or “gomers”? Do you suction them or draw an ABG without EVER talking to them? Are you ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE that YOU know what is going on inside? Do you?
Do you have any idea how many nurses, RTs and doctors I have worked with who have absolutely NO sense of the humanity of the patients they deal with every day? You don’t have to be a sob-sister- you just have to share a bit of that humanity.