This Article  • References  • 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?

Fred Rosner, MD; Edward J. Hotchkiss, MD
Long Island Jewish Medical Center Queens Hospital Center Affiliation Jamaica, NY Health Sciences Center, State University of New York at Stony Brook

JAMA. 1988;260(21):3129.

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

To the Editor.—

New York State law¹ requires that the issues of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and do not resuscitate (DNR) orders be discussed in advance with all hospitalized patients and/or their surrogates to ensure that the patient's wishes are honored. In the absence of a specific written DNR order, which must be renewed every three days, all patients with cardiopulmonary arrest must be resuscitated even if they have metastatic cancer or another irreversible terminal condition in which CPR is of no benefit.

The provisions of the law are multiple, complex, and cumbersome and cannot take into account all possible clinical scenarios. The new law may, in fact, adversely affect more patient situations than necessary and force more resuscitations than ever before. The legislation, although well intended, fails in its objectives in several important ways. Discussions of death and CPR and DNR orders with a dying patient followed by a . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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