Hello everybody,  my dear rascals:

Before anything, I would like to tell you that I miss you… many days ago that  there is no comments in the post, and the truth is that feedback is necessary for the IC-HU Project makes sense. It is not only that you read, I would like you to participate actively with your points of view. So all of this will make sense and everybody would learn.

So, my “English friends…I say: Come on!!!!

Now, the post to end the week…Published on 10 April in The New York Times and shared in the social networks of ESICM,  the next post to ‘ A Code Death’ for Dying Patients‘, signed by Dr. Jessica Nutik Zitter.

I bring you a small overview.

‘Sadly, but with conviction, I recently removed breathing tubes from three patients in intensive care.

As an I.C.U. doctor, I am trained to save lives. Yet the reality is that some of my patients are beyond saving. And while I can use the tricks of my trade to keep their bodies going, many will never return to a quality of life that they, or anyone else, would be willing to accept.
 
I was trained to use highly sophisticated tools to rescue those even beyond the brink of death. But I was never trained how to unhook these tools. I never learned how to help my patients die.
 
I committed the protocols of lifesaving to memory and get recertified every two years to handle a Code Blue, which alerts us to the need for immediate resuscitation. Yet a Code Blue is rarely successful. Very few patients ever leave the hospital afterward. Those that do rarely wake up again.
 
It has become clear to me in my years on this job that we need a Code Death.
 
 
But in this age of technological wizardry, doctors have been taught that they must do everything possible to stave off death. We refuse to wait passively for a last breath, and instead pump air into dying bodies in our own ritual of life-prolongation. Like a midwife slapping life into a newborn baby, doctors now try to punch death out of a dying patient. There is neither acknowledgement of nor preparation for this vital existential moment, which arrives, often unexpected, always unaccepted, in a flurry of panicked activity and distress.
 
We physicians need to relearn the ancient art of dying. When planned for, death can be a peaceful, even transcendent experience.
 
For the modern doctor immersed in a culture of default lifesaving, there are two key elements to this skill. The first is acknowledgment that it is time to shift the course of care. The second is primarily technical.
 
I stop here,  so you should read the original. Shall we talk about euthanasia?

Happy weekend!!