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Patient or family - who are doctors caring for in the ICU?
How far do doctors go to accommodate family of dying patients in order to leave them with no regrets? There is no easy answer.
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Medical workers examining a patient in Bagae Hospital in Pyeongtaek, South Korea.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Daniela J. Lamas
(NYTIMES) - We gathered as a medical team in front of my patient's room early one Saturday. She was one of the sickest patients in the intensive care unit. Her lungs were destroyed by cancer and a rare reaction to her chemotherapy, and her condition worsened each day, despite aggressive interventions. It was clear that there was nothing more that we could do. Except to keep her alive until Monday.
Struggling to come to terms with this reality, her family had begged us to continue our interventions through the weekend. So we would keep her intubated, deeply sedated and, we hoped, pain-free, performing the rituals of intensive care until the family was ready to say goodbye.
