05-14-2016, 03:11 PM
Don't get me wrong, DNR/DNI's and living wills are very, very important. However, you really need to be attentive and assertive about their use and application.
It's good to have many, many copies and to carry them to every significant healthcare event, and insist that they put them on the chart that is to be used during THIS event.
And, one has to be wary of relatives and/or home healthcare folks. I've been on several 911 calls where the patient has done all the paperwork carefully and correctly, all the t's dotted and the i's crossed. Then someone else on scene loses their nerve and either "loses" the paperwork, or tears it up, and there we are, working a code on someone who did not want any of this. And now the patient, if we get them back, is likely facing egregious disability, pain etc. instead of what they wanted.
It's good to have many, many copies and to carry them to every significant healthcare event, and insist that they put them on the chart that is to be used during THIS event.
And, one has to be wary of relatives and/or home healthcare folks. I've been on several 911 calls where the patient has done all the paperwork carefully and correctly, all the t's dotted and the i's crossed. Then someone else on scene loses their nerve and either "loses" the paperwork, or tears it up, and there we are, working a code on someone who did not want any of this. And now the patient, if we get them back, is likely facing egregious disability, pain etc. instead of what they wanted.
[font=Arial Black]... a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition.[/font]