How dare you opine that someone with no heartbeat and respiration is basically dead and therefore does not feel pain. With all due respect your statement is dangerous and backed by minimal understanding of human physiology. I can point to thousands of patients whom I have resuscitated over my career who felt great pain and fear in advanced cardiac life support. I will gladly put this up against your dozen resuscitations. May I remind you of the great advice that it is better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
We've had different experiences, I dare say.
Outside of the surgical/critical care world, what's your experience with CPR?
With patients found dead when the nurses make 5:30 AM rounds, for example? Or bleeders who go asystolic when the blood comes out faster than you can put it in?
It's a serious issue. New York State mandates CPR unless declined in writing as a "pro-life" measure, but most of MY patients who arrest do so because everything done to prevent it has failed.
Acute MIs? Absolutely yes. End of life CMO people who signed the paper? Absolutely not.
People who die overnight in an unmonitored bed with cancer, AIDS, cirrhosis and liver failure?
Them, I'm not so sure it should be a requirement.
I've done it, and not done it, a lot since July 1, 1974. I think the current regulatory and legal environment promotes "slow codes" when "no codes" sould be at the doctor's discretion based on circumstances in the moment.
When I was a senior on call, I used to carry an ophthalmoscope for exactly this reason. Fixed, dilated, blood clotted in retinal veins? No code.
Which is, IMO, as it should be.
Look Dummy dead people that stay dead don’t complain about pain because they are dead. Those that survive are not dead to begin with. Sorry if that offends.