Palace of Care – First Do No Harm

Photo by Liza Pooor on Unsplash

It’s not like what you see on TV. In real life, resuscitation doesn’t work so well. I’ve worked on many cardiac arrest calls in the past and almost 100% were not successful. In those few successful resuscitations, the person was left physically and mentally damaged. With your burden of disease, the chances of a successful resuscitation would be close to zero. The first thing they teach us in medical school is, “first do no harm.” If something that we are considering doing has questionable benefits but likely harm, we really need to think about it carefully. You have so much going on already, and the last thing we want to do is to make your situation worse. Some of our treatments could worsen things with little chance of benefit. If your heart or lungs were to stop working, we would not be able to bring you back. We would not perform CPR as it would cause you harm with no benefit at all. I don’t think you are at risk of having your heart or lungs stop just yet, but I have to be clear with you as to what to expect. I don’t want there to be any surprises between us. It’s not over yet. So let’s focus on making the most of your time. Let’s concentrate on something that will help you, treatments that can decrease your suffering, and make you more comfortable. Is there something that you have always wanted to do that you haven’t done yet? Is there something nice that we could help organise?

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