“Allow natural death” is not equivalent to “do not resuscitate”: a response

Venneman and colleagues argue that “do not resuscitate” (DNR) is problematic and should be replaced by “allow natural death” (AND). Their argument is flawed. First, while end-of-life discussions should be as positive as possible, they cannot and should not sidestep painful but necessary confrontatio...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Chen, Y. Y. (Author) ; Youngner, S. J. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: BMJ Publ. 2008
In: Journal of medical ethics
Year: 2008, Volume: 34, Issue: 12, Pages: 887-888
Online Access: Volltext (JSTOR)
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Summary:Venneman and colleagues argue that “do not resuscitate” (DNR) is problematic and should be replaced by “allow natural death” (AND). Their argument is flawed. First, while end-of-life discussions should be as positive as possible, they cannot and should not sidestep painful but necessary confrontations with morality. Second, while DNR can indeed be nonspecific and confusing, AND merely replaces one problematic term with another. Finally, the study’s results are not generalisable to the populations of physicians and working nurses and certainly do not support the authors’ claim that there is a movement to replace DNR with AND.
ISSN:1473-4257
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of medical ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1136/jme.2008.024570