“The doctor told me that the paramedics would break the bones in his chest and Dad would die in pain.”
That’s what I’ve read by doctors who declined to initiate a DNR. However, I wonder about how many paramedics respect a DNR during the process of life saving. Probably zero to none.
We honor a DNR if we are shown a legal one and are not asked to proceed by a family member.
If there is a DNR order signed by a physician paramedics honor that. I give my patients several copies and tell them to post one on the refrigerator and one on the bedroom door. Short of a signed order by a licensed provider, they are obligated to do full resuscitative measures
My Dad was a Paramedic. He was always full code. Sometime nurses and docs would want to argue about it. They would tell me how it was so much worse than you see on TV blah blah blah.
I just told them he was a tough old bird and a retired Paramedic, so I thought he probably knew what he was doing. Plus he was a volunteer fireman and veteran of WWII, and if he wanted to go down fighting, I figured he’d earned the right.