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

Mary E. Charlson, MD; Frederic Sax, MD; R. Gordon Douglas, MD; Robert L. Braham, MD; C. Ronald MacKenzie, MD; Suzanne D. Fields, MD
The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center

JAMA. 1986;256(8):1000.

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

In Reply.—

The letters by Drs Smith and Glass argue that patients have a right to participate in decisions about their resuscitation status. We agree. They also argue that such discussions are not anxiety provoking. We doubt it. Nevertheless, the real issue is when such discussions should be initiated. Should they take place at the time of admission to hospital? At the first office visit? In the emergency room? We believe that there is no universally correct answer to this question. Given that we cannot identify 100% of the patients who will subsequently suffer arrest, the demand that such discussions take place with each patient would mean that the issue of resuscitation should be raised with every patient on admission. We believe that this is unrealistic and possibly unwise policy. In clinical practice these discussions are initiated based on the specific circumstances of individual patients (ie, with patients who have . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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