Wednesday, December 29, 2021

When DNR is revoked for a few hours

 
Many times I witnessed this sorry state of affairs; the person who is identified as DNR and then, he or she is not allowed to die. Yes, it is true. A DNR designated patient is coerced / urged / guided to undergo some kind of safe surgery and the surgeon declares that the DNR designation is "suspended" during the surgical procedure. This is where doctors think they are gods; where nothing could possibly go wrong that they can't handle. Oops, Mr. Billy coded on the table and the team can't possibly let him die. Well, the primary reason for that has to do with the Physician, the medical practice and the hospital reputation status. It doesn't look good when patients die during surgery. And there you go, Mr. DNR was not allowed to die and quite likely his QOL is now worse than it was preop. In fact, he might suffer fifty times more on the way to his natural death.


Free Resuscitation


When I got too old
To drive my car,
My doctor made me
A DNR,
But when I went in
For my surgery,
They offered resuscitation
Completely free.

That's a heck of a deal
The surgeon said,
If you crump on the table
We'll bring you back from the dead,
Because we don't want people dying
In our operation room,
It's bad for our reputation
It's a flippin', dollar doom.

But worry not, sir
There ain't nobody better,
We operate by the book
Down to the last letter,
And the gist of all this talk
Is about risks and regulations,
You'll come through with flying colors
And standing ovations.

So you did poorly, after surgery
Well, it's clearly not our fault,
We performed what we promised
And you didn't tell us to halt,
When you had the opportunity
Before morbidity and mortality,
Would get the upper hand
And you'd become a fatality.

You should have put your foot down
And stayed a DNR,
Before you let that doctor
Be the driver in your car.



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