News Archives
Terminal patients in the ICU and organ donation
In my job as a palliative medicine doctor, I am frequently talking with patients and families about the potential of withdrawal of ventilators/pressors/dialysis in the ICU. Obviously this is not the only thing I talk about, but it often comes up in discussing dignity and futility and all the things that demonstrate our limits with modern medicine.
One of the things I have not seen implemented well (in person or in literature) is a way to make organ donation and palliative medicine work a little closer together. An article in the current Intensive Care Medicine describes a pilot project to develop a program for non-beating heart donors (NBHD) after withdrawal of life support. This Swiss study was prospective and identified 73 of 516 deaths that might be appropriate for NBHD of kidney, liver or lung. While they found that there was too much variability in how patients died in the ICU after withdrawal to implement their program, they did come up with some interesting data and discussions.
