Doctors die differently.

http://www.dailygood.org/story/136/how-doctors-die-ken-murray/

Almost all medical professionals have seen what we call “futile care” being performed on people. That’s when doctors bring the cutting edge of technology to bear on a grievously ill person near the end of life. The patient will get cut open, perforated with tubes, hooked up to machines, and assaulted with drugs. All of this occurs in the Intensive Care Unit at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars a day. What it buys is misery we would not inflict on a terrorist. I cannot count the number of times fellow physicians have told me, in words that vary only slightly, “Promise me if you find me like this that you’ll kill me.” They mean it. Some medical personnel wear medallions stamped “NO CODE” to tell physicians not to perform CPR on them. I have even seen it as a tattoo.

To administer medical care that makes people suffer is anguishing. Physicians are trained to gather information without revealing any of their own feelings, but in private, among fellow doctors, they’ll vent. “How can anyone do that to their family members?” they’ll ask. I suspect it’s one reason physicians have higher rates of alcohol abuse and depression than professionals in most other fields. I know it’s one reason I stopped participating in hospital care for the last 10 years of my practice.



....It’s easy to find fault with both doctors and patients in such stories, but in many ways all the parties are simply victims of a larger system that encourages excessive treatment. In some unfortunate cases, doctors use the fee-for-service model to do everything they can, no matter how pointless, to make money. More commonly, though, doctors are fearful of litigation and do whatever they’re asked, with little feedback, to avoid getting in trouble.

Not always. If the family requests all measures be taken...it is. Yes, some Docs with a god complex-I-can-raise-the-dead ego will go to extremes, many Docs do not and will not do that.

A good Doctor should know when to say enough...

Several years ago, my older cousin Torch (born at home by the light of a flashlight—or torch) had a seizure that turned out to be the result of lung cancer that had gone to his brain. I arranged for him to see various specialists, and we learned that with aggressive treatment of his condition, including three to five hospital visits a week for chemotherapy, he would live perhaps four months. Ultimately, Torch decided against any treatment and simply took pills for brain swelling. He moved in with me.

We spent the next eight months doing a bunch of things that he enjoyed, having fun together like we hadn’t had in decades. We went to Disneyland, his first time. We’d hang out at home. Torch was a sports nut, and he was very happy to watch sports and eat my cooking. He even gained a bit of weight, eating his favorite foods rather than hospital foods. He had no serious pain, and he remained high-spirited. One day, he didn’t wake up. He spent the next three days in a coma-like sleep and then died. The cost of his medical care for those eight months, for the one drug he was taking, was about $20.

Torch was no doctor, but he knew he wanted a life of quality, not just quantity. Don’t most of us? If there is a state of the art of end-of-life care, it is this: death with dignity. As for me, my physician has my choices. They were easy to make, as they are for most physicians. There will be no heroics, and I will go gentle into that good night. Like my mentor Charlie. Like my cousin Torch. Like my fellow doctors.

TEOTWAWKI wrote:A good Doctor should know when to say enough...

Several years ago, my older cousin Torch (born at home by the light of a flashlight—or torch) had a seizure that turned out to be the result of lung cancer that had gone to his brain. I arranged for him to see various specialists, and we learned that with aggressive treatment of his condition, including three to five hospital visits a week for chemotherapy, he would live perhaps four months. Ultimately, Torch decided against any treatment and simply took pills for brain swelling. He moved in with me.

We spent the next eight months doing a bunch of things that he enjoyed, having fun together like we hadn’t had in decades. We went to Disneyland, his first time. We’d hang out at home. Torch was a sports nut, and he was very happy to watch sports and eat my cooking. He even gained a bit of weight, eating his favorite foods rather than hospital foods. He had no serious pain, and he remained high-spirited. One day, he didn’t wake up. He spent the next three days in a coma-like sleep and then died. The cost of his medical care for those eight months, for the one drug he was taking, was about $20.

Torch was no doctor, but he knew he wanted a life of quality, not just quantity. Don’t most of us? If there is a state of the art of end-of-life care, it is this: death with dignity. As for me, my physician has my choices. They were easy to make, as they are for most physicians. There will be no heroics, and I will go gentle into that good night. Like my mentor Charlie. Like my cousin Torch. Like my fellow doctors.

So glad Torch had a wonderful cousin.

Sure. and the first time a doctor doesn't do all that excessive testing and one little thing that gets missed. the BIGGEST LAWSUIT you ever seen will be jumped on so quickly you will think NASA just sent in a rocket to deliver the news.

So here's how it will end up to make you all happy.

The GOV will run healthcare and tell you what test you can and can not have. If something gets missed, tuff shit. try suing the gov.

That will be the exact case. Medicaid for all..!!

Actually the article substantiated what I have thought all my life. When it's time to die, die. All this BS with technology torturing your body to keep you breathing for another week at a cost of hundreds of thousands is just cowardice in my opinion. Sure Dick Cheney is still alive and I understand that , he's staying out of hell for as long as his blood money can keep him.

ZVUGKTUBM wrote:I hope to go like my cousin did. He had a heart attack and simply fell to the ground, dead before his torso hit the turf.

I want to be shot in the back by a young jealous husband.

TEOTWAWKI wrote:Actually the article substantiated what I have thought all my life. When it's time to die, die. All this BS with technology torturing your body to keep you breathing for another week at a cost of hundreds of thousands is just cowardice in my opinion. Sure Dick Cheney is still alive and I understand that , he's staying out of hell for as long as his blood money can keep him.

Do you feel the same way about children who have chemotherapy

Or heart transplants or kidney transplants etc?

I mean is there a age limit that you think people should just take a pill like Obama does?

Dot wrote:Sure. and the first time a doctor doesn't do all that excessive testing and one little thing that gets missed. the BIGGEST LAWSUIT you ever seen will be jumped on so quickly you will think NASA just sent in a rocket to deliver the news.

So here's how it will end up to make you all happy.

The GOV will run healthcare and tell you what test you can and can not have. If something gets missed, tuff shit. try suing the gov.

So you think no insurance company ever said no you cant have that test?
1 more thing, with all the money the Koch bros have why can't they find 1 Obamacare horror story that can stand up to a little fact checking?

You know I don't want children harmed. I still think people old enough to make an informed decision should. The point is if you will never leave the hospital and remain suffering then why.  Go on under natural means and die. If like seaoat you can still have a quality of life then live.

TEOTWAWKI wrote:You know I don't want children harmed. I still think people old enough to make an informed decision should. The point is if you will never leave the hospital and remain suffering then why.  Go on under natural means and die. If like seaoat you can still have a quality of life then live.

seaoat has said his $20,000 a month shots are keeping him alive.

back to what we were talking about though.

I knew you did not want kids dead. Hence my remark about is there a certain age.

I can agree that people should have some dignity with death at a certain point. But facts are most people want to hang onto life as long as possible. and that has nothing to do with doctors other than doctors are gone to by these people who want them to be miracle workers. And like I said and you know its true, because people expect doctors to be magic and cure them of all when they don't and especially when people die, people are angry and they want to sue out of that anger so that doctor better not have missed a step. patients sue doctors all the time when the doctor did everything he could.

and then there are people who go into doctors praying for a slip up, because they want to sue.

Then you have people who go online and look up every damn worst case scenario and toss it out at the doctor wanting this, what about that and if the doctor don't give it to them then that doctor is automatically a quack and wont help them.

Do you understand what I am trying to say here?

damned if you do and damned if you don't is what I am saying here.   

Yes I do understand. I can also imagine that those people that expect above and beyond treatment for their malady can get it, seaoat for one. He pays a premium for that benefit. Whether it actually is what is keeping him alive is debatable at some level . Also this is a story about doctors that probably like seaoat have the means to obtain the best treatment available but instead opt for quality of life over quantity. The run of the mill Joe Blow falls somewhere in between in ability to get the best medical service. I think that you are right , few doctors would ever tell a cancer patient just go home and enjoy the time left. They know they are expected to do something amazing . We may need to rethink how we teach children about death and dying so they can accept it when it comes.

Joanimaroni wrote:Not always. If the family requests all measures be taken...it is. Yes, some Docs with a god complex-I-can-raise-the-dead ego will go to extremes,  many Docs do not and will not do that.

I believe you are 100% correct. Years ago I had a good friend of mine contract cancer. I did not know his wife very well and am glad I did not. He fought a good battle and was only in his 50's. I ran into them at the grocery store one day and we talked for a while. He was doing well and there was one other surgery they COULD do but the doctors recommended against it STRONGLY. He and his wife said that he was going ahead with that particular surgery. I was thinking...WHY? But didn't say anything.

A few months later she called me and wanted to list one of their rental houses for sale. She said that "Don" had died on the operating table and she did not want any rental properties.

During our first meeting, she said that she was...ta da...SUING THE DOCTORS AND HOSPITAL. Again, hard to believe here but, I said nothing. My job is to move the sale forward.

They told ME that the doctors had strongly recommended against this procedure, whatever it was, and yet she was SUING the doctors and hospital. And we question why their insurance is so high.

TEOTWAWKI wrote:Yes I do understand. I can also imagine that those people that expect above and beyond treatment for their malady can get it, seaoat for one. He pays a premium for that benefit. Whether it actually is what is keeping him alive is debatable at some level . Also this is a story about doctors that probably like seaoat have the means to obtain the best treatment available but instead opt for quality of life over quantity. The run of the mill Joe Blow falls somewhere in between in ability to get the best medical service. I think that you are right , few doctors would ever tell a cancer patient just go home and enjoy the time left. They know they are expected to do something amazing . We may need to rethink how we teach children about death and dying so they can accept it when it comes.

I wouldn't know where to start to teach a child about how to die gracefully as they got older. That has got to be the hardest thing in the world.

I can only assume something like that is taught by example.

My mother was a good example of that. She refused to have her throat cut out because she had to sing for the lord. and she did for 2 more years. Then went quickly.

Ill tell you like I have on here before. Im not afraid of dying. Im afraid of what I leave behind.