Death

Last week, in clinical, we had an eldery patient with cancer come in - in cardiac arrest. EMS had ROSC (Return of Spontanious Circulation) multiple times, and we lost pulses more than conce. The wife was in another room, and the patient's oncologist talked with him, then came in the room and told us to stop, that the pateint had a valid DNR, and the wife wanted it to be followed at that time, even though she had apparently told ALS to provide care and disregard the DNR.

Odd thing about it was that it was the LEAST sad cardiac arrest I'd ever seen. Everyone agreed that it was sad - but it was an older patient - and he had multiple cancers and was already going down fast. I think it also helped that there was only a spouse (that seemed to expect the outcome), not 20 family members screaming and crying.

Just some random musings.