How to
Pronounce a Patient ‘Dead’ July 1995
On my first
rotation, a clerkship in Internal Medicine, we had a patient who was dying of
breast cancer. It had advanced because she chose alternative medicine treatment
instead of conventional therapy.
It was at the end. Her family had basically dumped her off onto our
service to die.
She was being
massaged with oils. The morphine drip was running. Spa-type music was playing
as we rounded on her in the morning.
I found it
strange that there was no family present for her at any time.
In the
evening, the intern was called at the bedside to pronounce her dead. He asked
me to come with him so I could learn.
First you look
in the eyes and shine a light. There is no reaction of the pupil. Second, you
listen and feel for breath. Third, you listen and feel for heartbeat. When
there are no breaths and no
heartbeat, your patient is deceased.
You write a note and fill out lots of paperwork. In some cases the
coroner has to be notified of this death, too.
As I was
learning from him, out of the corner of my eye was my patient’s spirit trying
to get my attention. “Look at me! I’m happy!” was my patient, kind of in a
short skirt and top, looking fabulous and jumping up and down. I looked up at
her, thought—‘what if my intern
finds out I am doing this?’—and quickly looked back down. I avoided eye contact
with the spirit. But I felt her. She didn’t know that things
like this are ‘not okay’ in medicine today.
Namaste,
Reiki Doc
