The most important conversation of your life (or death): Talking about resuscitation.
Everyone’s heart stops. Yet it seems like so few are prepared for it. Or rather, so few have prepared their loved ones for it. When I first started working as a doctor in the intensive care unit (ICU), it struck me as odd that many of my 70, 80, and 90-year-old patients had never had the talk with their families about what they wanted the end of their lives to look like, and the medical care they did or did not want to receive. To a family member shocked to hear that a loved one may pass away, the natural instinct is to say “do everything it takes to keep them alive as long as possible.” But to the doctor, the question is not “how do I prolong your mother’s life,” because that is a fairly straightforward question that can be found in the textbooks, but “what quality of life would she find acceptable.”
For most patients admitted to the ICU, they are no longer in a position to talk about their wishes with family members. Most are not able to talk at all due to the severity of their medical condition, so I go to the emergency contacts list and call their closest family member, which for elderly patients is usually a son or daughter. For each patient, in the initial call I need to find out what their “code status” is, meaning what life-prolonging medical measures would they want or don’t want.
