From: CALYK@aol.com
Date: Mon Sep 08 1997 - 22:00:41 MDT
In a message dated 97-09-08 22:18:36 EDT, you write:
<< > Also there may be less of a chance that you'll get saved in an accident
> because in the back of their mind they know that you're an organ donor.
>
> danny
I've never understood why people think this. (I believe Hagbard Celine is
correct to label it a myth.)
From the EMT or paramedic's perspective, if a person is an organ donor, it
means you *continue* to give CPR, even when the person seems unsalvageable.
But there are very few cases in which EMT's are allowed to withhold this
care, anyway (decapitation, rigor, total-body-cruch, etc.), so they would
do that either way if there was no obvious reason not to. As for ER
doctors, their strongest motivation, for a variety of reasons, is to save
every person who can be saved. Unless there is some conspiracy (where the
doctor is being bribed by someone), there is much more value to the doctor
in adding one saved ER life to his tally than there is in adding one ER
death and one successfully donated organ. MUCH more value.
>>
I didnt mean that they intentionally would want them to die, just that they
have the thought "well, if this one dies, there's always the organ", which
may affect his/her surgical procedures, maybe not.
danny
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