Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về y học được đăng trên tạp chí y học Critical Care giúp cho các bạn có thêm kiến thức về ngành y học đề tài: Pro/con ethics debate: When is dead really dead? | Critical Care December 2005 Vol 9 No 6 Whetstine et al. Review Pro con ethics debate When is dead really dead Leslie Whetstine1 Stephen Streat2 Mike Darwin3 and David Crippen4 1Health Care Ethics Center Duquesne University 600 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh PA 15282 USA 2Department of Critical Care Medicine Auckland Hospital Private Bag 92-024 Auckland New Zealand independent Critical Care Consultant PO Box 1175 Ash Fork Arizona 86320 USA 4 Department of Critical Care Medicine University of Pittsburgh Medical Center 644a Scaife Hall 3550 Terrace Ave Pittsburgh PA 15261 Corresponding author David Crippen Crippen@ Published online 31 October 2005 This article is online at http content 9 6 538 2005 BioMed Central Ltd Critical Care 2005 9 538-542 DOI cc3894 Abstract Contemporary intensive care unit ICU medicine has complicated the issue of what constitutes death in a life support environment. Not only is the distinction between sapient life and prolongation of vital signs blurred but the concept of death itself has been made more complex. The demand for organs to facilitate transplantation promotes a strong incentive to define clinical death in a manner that most effectively supplies that demand. We consider the problem of defining death in the ICU as a function of viable organ availability for transplantation The scenario A 45 year old female patient arrives in the emergency department after having complained of a headache and progresses to unresponsiveness. She is placed on mechanical ventilation and a CAT scan of her brain shows massive intracranial bleed. The family is assured she will probably progress to brain death but she doesn t. After two days in the intensive care unit she continues with gasping ventilations and some flexion to pain in one arm. All other brain functions are absent. Her hemodynamics and other organ function are stable. The family desires the patient to be an organ donor but she is clearly not brain dead. It is suggested
