Today, I declared someone dead.
из тумблерского древнего поста.
источник не сохранился.It wasn’t complicated like the brain death exam I remember learning in neurology as a fourth year med student. No, it was simple. Make sure they are not hypothermic. Listen for heart and lung sounds. Feel for a pulse. Check for pupillary and corneal reflexes. Call the time. Fill out the paperwork. The nurses helped me gather contact information; they were so gentle and graceful as family members filtered into the small room to grieve.
I didn’t have the patient for more than three hours before she passed away. She was DNR/DNI; admitted to my team to pass away quietly and peacefully. She did just that.
It wasn’t the death itself, or the sadness of the family members that will haunt me for the next few days. If anything, those are the things that made me feel better. This was the best scenario that could have happened for the patient and her family.
What I will remember will be the silence underneath my stethoscope when I pressed it to her chest. Knowing that I would hear nothing, but still hoping and wishing that I could hear the faint sound of a heartbeat, the whisper of a breath.
The hollow, roaring sound of nothing.