Comments on: How do you suppose being coded feels?

By: MJ

MJ — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 23:08:49 +0000

I would suggest that you learn what the reality is in franken medicine. Just google ‘resuscitation refusal override”. You are participating in that monstrous practice.

Consider that the research on sepsis (possibly as a complication of pneumonia with acute respiratory distress) which shows that the patient is better treated with hyperbaric oxygen with interleukin-10. Other research is more specific about protocols for intermittent HBOT to reduce mortality. Curiously the results are better WITHOUT antibiotics. Wonder why these results are not pursued? What would hold this up?

Franken medicine is unopposed. Some results are as old as the 90s, others up to 2006. Including controlling septic shock with interleukin-10. Somethings like IL-10 even might be doable with nutrition. Curiously, nursing nutrition is not favored. Just pharma-franken.

Where’s the pressure for implementation? Most of what I hear and see are self-pitying providers who do not stand up, except at websites.

By: puja

puja — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:53:47 +0000

It’s true the medical industry has created a monster but day in and day out i watch as people begging for us to do everything we can. We only intubate if the pt has consented. And if it is emergent we have not choice because then its a lawsuit waiting to happen. so there you go.

By: MJ

MJ — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 23:23:02 +0000

Does it ever occur to you that you are part of a franken-medicine system?

Your intubation methods are totally barbaric. There is at least one oxygen therapeutic (Oxycyte) that delivers oxygen to all parts of the body multiple times better than what that ventilator and tube can do with normal blood cells only.

This whole ugliness violates every contract with humanity that is promised to us in the widely trumpeted Hippocratic Oath about doing no harm.

Refusing to torture when ordered may end your ‘career’ but having seen the reality, how do you deal with your insanity.

And yes I’ve seen ER staffers engage in prejudging the patient and engaging in inappropriate treatment. Against old as well as young.

Where is that ‘do unto others’ part of Christianity when you would never allow the code horror to be done unto you?

You are supporting franken-medicine by participating. How can you avoid it.

By: Allison

Allison — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 04:43:27 +0000

i have worked in the nursing area for years…here is a few things that i have to add regarding the “code”

to add to this tidbit…
we may place a tube in your nose that goes into your stomach to suction out stomach contents so you don’t vomit during the cpr or aspirate your own contents into your lungs causing pneumonia and a whole other host of problems…
also please don’t think that you will just wake up from the code and all of the machinery is gone like the tv shows illustrate…this is very rare and should not be expected…
we apologize for the goop, glue, and goo that is on your chest and other areas of your body but that came from the gel used on the defib paddles, electrodes, and other stuff we may have needed to use on you during your incident…
lastly please do not curse us out or threaten us upon regaining consciousness, we did this for you because you specified you wanted it done, we apologize for your pain and discomfort.

who said medicine was pretty anyways? and our own doctors wonder why we make such horrible patients!

By: Corey RN

Corey RN — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:54:41 +0000

I know this is a few years old, but thank you, thank you, THANK you for writing this. Everything you have said is 100% true and appropriate, and the naysayers really have no idea what it is like to work in our environment. By the way, I am a med-surg nurse, and I love the floor, and we deal with this just like ICU RNs do.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:44:11 +0000

I totally agree with Geena. As a critical care nurse of 27 years, I have made family members “no codes” and have also coded my disabled 45 year old husband. Yes, I discovered him at home, accidently electrocuted while trying to work after a social security denial, started CPR, called 911, lived through hypothermia protocol and now live with a 46 year old brain injured man. He has made remarkable progress, but is not the same as before, and never will be. I also will never be the same. Would I do it again? You bet. Would I have done it to my 89 year old mother? Never in a million years. Cudos to you Geena for bringing a much needed topic to the surface. I wish all my patient’s family members could read it.

By: Peggy

Peggy — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 16:18:45 +0000

I’m headed for major, major surgery next week and have signed all the documents making clear that I’ll be DNR, that means anything. Likely I’ll sail through, but one never knows. I’m old, and if this body says no more, I don’t want anyone standing in my way.

By: Rae

Rae — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:56:06 +0000

Thank you so much, Geena. I know *exactly* what you mean, and agree wholeheartedly.

As for Cathy, honey… as trite as it sounds, you just have no idea until you’re in our position, and you’ve been through what we have – hundreds of times. I’m truly sorry about your father, however the human heart and mind can only take so much tragedy (as seen through the eyes of medical professionals). Sometimes, you just have to find the painful or sarcastic humor in a situation to keep the unfairness from overwhelming you. Just because a patient is one of many does not mean that he’s a number to me, or anyone. It may not seem like it, but I care. God, do I care.

By: cw

cw — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:02:51 +0000

please do not lighten up those of us who have expereienced the end of life. We have a right to our perceptions.

By: Adrianne

Adrianne — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 22:26:17 +0000

I really liked the dry sense of humor you brought to your posting. Those of us who have been in medicine for a long time need humor to keep doing this job.I still shudder every time I think of the LOL (little old lady) that was my first code. One push on her chest and I felt the crack crack crack of those three osteoporetic ribs break. In the last 35 years, there have been good codes with good outcomes (mostly otherwise healthy and fairly young people) and lots of bad outcomes. Statistics are not good for surviving a code even after all these years of BLS & ACLS training for hospital staff. The civilian population out there need to be aware of exactly what a code entails, and the futility of giving drugs to a patient who does not have a pulse. The drug needs to get to the heart quickly if it is to have any effect. Giving 3 doses of epi that sits in the arm just so you can say you did “something” is a futile waste of time and money. Nurses today do not have any time to waste. Even with nursing ratios, our patient load is so much sicker than 25 years ago, that some days you can’t get through a 12 hour day and get all your work done on time. With administration pushing us to treat out patients as hotel guests and meet their every whim, it is impossible to finish charting in a timely manner. No nurse likes a code, but sometimes you can’t avoid it, and there is nothing worse then having a patient who is a DNR per their request, going to the great ICU in the SKY, and a family member insists that you have to do something to save them now that they are unresponsive and can’t protest. We recently had a patient in our unit for 3 months who did not want to be resusitated, but her family insisted we had to keep treating her despite 2 codes. We learned they were dependent on her social security check for income, and after she was transfered to a long term vent care facility, they continued to collect and spend her check. Our social worker had to report their fraud to the goverment. Since then, he found out they have never visited their mother, and she is now a DNR (she’s of no use to them any more). It’s crap like this that makes us cynical and wanting a new career. We need occassional levity to keep doing this year after year in more and more trying circumstances.