Calling a Death

basically, saying the patient is dead, there is really no chance of him making it back from any further attempts at revival. He was just asking if the team if they agreed mostly out of respect for the others in the revival effort.

Perhaps the Dr would have given the rational to the nurse as to why any firther efforts would have been futile. It's the Dr running the case who has the final decision.

Even though it sounds like he was a trauma surgeon, he may still have been a fellow or resident of some sort. Maybe covering his butt in case someone said 'direct cardiac massage!' or something along those lines.

karebear,

What channel did you see this show on? It was one of my favorites that use to come on discovery health and now I can't find the show anywhere

It's on Fit TV now

Even though it sounds like he was a trauma surgeon, he may still have been a fellow or resident of some sort. Maybe covering his butt in case someone said 'direct cardiac massage!' or something along those lines.

Even in the ED when we have a code the doctor running the code will ask that question before he/she decides to basically end a person's life.

OP, this is done for a variety of reasons. One of them is that it lets anyone who can think of anything that could be tried have their say. In the heat of the moment it is easy to forget a drug we could try. This allows the other team members to say whether they feel everything has been done to care for the patient and everyone acknowledges that the options have been exhausted.

I'm not an ER nurse, but spent a few weeks doing a stint in the ER. We had a MVA and the doctor asked the same thing... "Anyone else have any ideas?" I think it's a matter of respect and making sure everythings been covered. Only experienced it once though.

Most of the docs I work with do this before we call a code. Once, I saw a nurse ask for one more epi, and the person actually had a RSC. However, because of the underlying conditions which led to the code, the person ended up coding again before the shift was over, and since we'd "saved" them, the family -- who was there by that time -- demanded we keep going. We coded them a total of 5 separate times. It was absolutely horrible. The final time we were doing compressions, I felt like I was kneading bread dough with rice krispies in it -- we'd broken every bone in the poor soul's chest, expected in someone 90+. The doc made them come in and watch the last resc effort, and when they saw what "do everything" actually meant, they asked us to stop.

So, yes, someone can make a suggestion, and the docs will listen, but like the old adage says....be careful what you ask for...

Also the doc doesnt see everything that is going on so they might have missed something. I know that once someone said his family is almost here so we kept him "alive" long enough for his wife to see him again.

Sometimes it's on OWN (late, late night)

Part of being a resucitation team leader is taking input from team members. The doc was just making sure he had everyone's.

Also, often times the person who knows the patient's health history best is not the physician running the code, but the nurse (at least where I work, ICU). A wise physician would ask if anyone else has any ideas before ending the resuscitation effort. Most, if not all, our docs do this.