Some of this article is realistic - futile measures at the end of life often are torturous. Performing CPR on a terminal cancer patient could count among them.
However, I have personally helped bring two people back with CPR and an AED. Both recovered fully and are leading fullfilling lives with family and careers. What is the article suggesting? That I should have left my 37 year old colleague (with two young children) to die on the floor? That I should have allowed my 53 year old neighbor to die on the floor of her kitchen in front of her 16 year old son? Both were apparently healthy before suffering a sudden cardiac event.
The author needs to make a clearer distinction between people whose conditions are long-term and clearly terminal and who need loving care to ease their suffering and those who otherwise in decent health who have a sudden event.
“What is the article suggesting? That I should have left my 37 year old colleague (with two young children) to die on the floor? That I should have allowed my 53 year old neighbor to die on the floor of her kitchen in front of her 16 year old son?”
What are you suggesting? How could anyone, after actually reading the article, have to ask what the article is “suggesting”? Why are you suggesting that the article is suggesting that the article suggests leaving people to die “on the floor” when it suggests no such thing?
You mean, a sudden cardiac event, right?
The range of events for which CPR has even a vanishingly small chance of success is very narrow.
The range of events for which CPR is currently applied is enormous.
Take, for example, the patient found dead in bed at 5am nurse rounds. I have never, in 35 years, seen such a patient successfully resuscitated. Have you?
Have you ever seen one such patient without a preexisting DNR order NOT get CPR?
CPR is subject to more magical thinking than any other medical procedure of which I am aware.
The article is referring to what doctors chose for themselves. The two situations you describe are far different than finding out one has pancreatic cancer. Doctors save others all the time. The offer the best care and treatment and care they can. When it comes to themselves, particularly with terminal diseases (cancers etc) they often opt to do nothing other than live their lives as best they can.
That's something to be proud of.
My parents both rode an ambulance for a long, long time. They made one save of an adult between them, and have always said that CPR is a waste of time, unless the person drops right in front of you. In the case of the save they made, the guy dropped dead, literally on top of Dad. (literally fell on to him. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. Dad told him not to play the lottery ever again....)
Now - kids are a different story. Mom made a handful of saves on kids that stopped breathing. But - with the specific exception I discussed - this story was spot on about adults.
I dont think the article is talking about sudden cardiac events in the younger people. I think that the author is referencing sudden events in the elderly and significant terminal diagnosis in everyone.
Even so, this is a personal issue between the patient and family with medical input. As medical people become more and more, arms of the government (witness the government questions about guns and the reporting requirements which get more onerous by the year, as well as how they, as a group, throw themselves at Universal Health Care.
Granted, the good doctor didn’t make a full case about CPR/AED saving lives, but I also have seen that CPR may save a life occasionally, but the majority of CPRs effect no lasting good for the patient. It depends on the age and the health of the patient. Over all, I agree with him. CPR can also have debilitating effects, as well. Some do CPR far longer than needed and even though the patient might come back, they are never the same again. If the patient is young, has a young family to care for, and otherwise good health, the chances are good. But that is not the majority of patients getting CPR.
I’m 63, my kids are raised. If I need CPR, I have already stated I do not want it. When I was younger, yes. I’d like to see my grandchildren grow up, but not from a nursing home bed.