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A DNR is not necessarily disease specific. DNR's can be as specific- or as general as the patient wishes them to be. Obviously, the more details included(No intubation, no pressors, no feeding tubes, no CPR etc), the less chance of any ambiguity. The correct title of this document is actually "Advanced Directive". DNR is probably the most common directive under that heading. Clearly, each case is different, and you need to take into account the circumstances, the disease process, etc. This is where judgment and compassion come into play because gray areas do occur, and as always you want to abide by the patient's(or legal representative) wishes and the spirit of the document's intent. Well said, RIchard. When my dad died suddenly, while he was on life support, we had the opportunity to donate his corneas, skin, and bone for grafts. At first they needed to rule out cancers, and other issues, and once they did, they were able to allow this to happen. Dad never expressed specifically his wishes for donations, but being the type of person he was, I am sure he approved. Like you-when I'm gone, my family is well aware they can have whatever parts they are able to take from me since I won't be needing them any more.

Here, I'll speak from emotion, and not legal. I do not believe so. There is always the DNR advance directives of elderly, and not so elderly, people, currently in good relative health, who do not want what I have heard described as "heroic efforts" to save them, if they expire. If I understand them correctly, when it's "their time", that is it. Let them go, they are going to "a better place". Tangent, here: Momma B has expressed her desire, when it is "her time", that any body part that can be used in a transplant, be so utilized, as at that point, she won't be actively needing them. In a weekly newspaper column we write, she has mentioned that doing so is her bit attempt at immortality, even if it is only a corneal transplant that will live on. When my father died, his eyes went and helped at least 2 other people, and his skin was used as temporary dressing on a burn patient. Momma B and I are signed up as organ donors, and suggest if you want that bid at immortality, also, that you, also do so.

The questions to ask in response would include; how many inadvertent oesophageal intubations occurred before capnography proliferated, or how many RVI's were given nitro and subsequently crashed prior to XII lead proliferation, or how many people having a stroke were delivered to the ER rather hypoglycaemic before the proliferation of POC blood glucose testing? Take care, chbare.