This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on Web of Science (1)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: "He died a natural death when he was 90. Just keeled over," a young man once said to me, describing the death of his grandfather. When I talk with patients about end-of-life issues, I sometimes ask them what manner of death they would prefer, if they could choose. Many say that they hope for a quick death and fear a prolonged death.

It was therefore intriguing to read the article by Dr Marenco and colleagues.¹ They found that automated external defibrillators (AEDs), a technology intended to avert sudden death, are rapidly infiltrating public spaces. As one who talks with people daily about choices, I like to imagine some supernatural being, perhaps a guardian angel, entering the scene as a woman who has collapsed in an airport is about to have an AED applied to her chest. The angel wants to learn the patient's preferences for end-of-life care . . . [Full Text of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLE

Improving Survival From Sudden Cardiac Arrest: The Role of the Automated External Defibrillator
John P. Marenco, Paul J. Wang, Mark S. Link, Munther K. Homoud, and N. A. Mark Estes III
JAMA. 2001;285(9):1193-1200.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT