There are few things more irritating in emergency medicine then when a patient who clearly is vegetative, severely demented, and bedridden has family members who refuse to make him or her DNR.
One thing that is more irritating though is when they keep reversing themselves! Okay let’s make her DNR. No, wait! Grandma said she wanted to live! Take off the DNR! Oh she’s not going to survive? Okay resume the DNR.
FFS.
The guilt of patrticide/matricide/what ever other familial death there is. Being the one to ultimately decide is difficult. You will be the one to live with it. Everyone else will blame you and hate you for it and when they aren’t doing that they’ll tell you did the right thing. Even the tiniest shred of doubt is all it takes.
Better yet: Have everybody make the decision for themselves and inform their next-of-kin about it so there will be (hopefully) next to no discussion about it when the time comes.
“Let me solve this with a coin, folks. Heads, she’s a DNR, tails we let her go peacefully.”
That’s what social workers are for, to help a family talk through a decision like this. No matter how dismal the patient’s situation, its a difficult decision to make and one that would be complicated by family dysfunction, rivalries, hostilities, etc — which is why they weren’t able to get it decided before.
Not as frustrating as a person whose family member HAS a DNR, clearly indicated, that gets ignored by ER staff so the fun of saying “take him off life support” still has to be done.
NOT allowing grandma to pass away peacefully is a form of elder abuse, IMHO.