Factors influencing decisions by critical care physicians to withdraw life-sustaining treatments in critically ill adult patients with severe traumatic brain injury
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- RE: Life sustaining treatments in severe traumatic injuryDhastagir Sultan SheriffPosted on: 21 June 2019
- Posted on: (21 June 2019)Page navigation anchor for RE: Life sustaining treatments in severe traumatic injuryRE: Life sustaining treatments in severe traumatic injury
- Dhastagir Sultan Sheriff, Professor and independent Research worker, Reprolabs, Chennai, India
The need for organs for organ transplantation had revived the concept of death from biological death to brainstem death. Following brain stem death criteria many would have benefited from organ transplantation by harvesting organs from the brain dead patients with the consent of the patient in the form of future directives or from the consent taken from the near kith and kin of the patient. Road traffic accidents have been the major cause of death in many countries including India where such decisions have made possible such organ transplantation. But in critical care unit withdrawing a life sustaining support to a traumatic injury patient is complicated and limitations of the human mind may influence the decision to continue or discontinue the treatment. Looking for Medical factors, social factors, and other markers may help to evaluate the need for such withdrawal of treatment. In one such scenario where a critically ill patients with very poor prognosis appeal to allow him/her to die peacefully in a place where he or she wishes to die becomes more relevant to introspect than to think of withdrawing or deciding when to withdraw treatment in severe traumatic brain injury. Such an approach may be to save a life by organ transplantation. Yet human life is not a physical phenomenon but a mysterious one where human mind or science cannot measure its value or its beginning or end.
Competing Interests: None declared.