Read this amazing account in the NY Times of how, earlier this year, world-famous heart surgeon Michael DeBakey’s doctors — who were also his longtime colleagues — had to agonize about violating his do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order before doing risky heart surgery to save his life.
The nonagenerian DeBakey had signed a DNR order because he didn’t want to risk being left physically or mentally crippled by the surgical procedure, one which he himself had pioneered decades before. His condition and circumstances, however, had arguably changed in the meantime.
The hospital’s ethics committee and DeBakey’s colleagues debated what he would have wanted. Some of them said that everything DeBakey did was for his family, and his family wanted the surgery to go forward.
In the end, family is what settled the matter. DeBakey’s wife charged into the ethics-committee meeting and said, in effect, he’s going to die tonight if you guys don’t get off your [rears] and get to work. So they did. DeBakey eventually recovered; he turned out to be pleased that his colleagues decided to operate on him, and now — at age 98! — he’s back working almost full time.
I’m going to have to make sure my living will says that, if I’m ever unable to speak for myself, my family and my doctors have full authority to override whatever I might have said in the past, even in a signed DNR order.
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