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A comment on What to Do When a Patient Has a 'Do Not Resuscitate' Tattoo. Parent comment

Re:What to Do When a Patient Has a 'Do Not Resuscitate' Tattoo by criddell on Monday December 04, 2017 @12:58PM (#15845917)
A 10 year old tattoo can be easily covered up or altered if the person changes their mind. This tattoo was clear and explicit and contained a signature. There wasn't any ambiguity.

Would you say the same thing about a 10-year old signed card in their wallet?

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Re:What to Do When a Patient Has a 'Do Not Resuscitate' Tattoo by Lon7 on Monday December 04, 2017 @01:20PM (#15846128)
I know I guy who has "Rape Me" tattooed on his chest. It's his favorite Nirvana Song. For the most part, tattoos are a form of art and expression. Phrases such as "death wish" or "kill me" are pretty common, and are absolutely not meant as instructions. The idea of DNR is pretty popular in certain artistic circles. There is an incredible amount of ambiguity in this situation.
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Re:What to Do When a Patient Has a 'Do Not Resuscitate' Tattoo by criddell on Monday December 04, 2017 @01:26PM (#15846185)
Actions often have consequences. I don't see this situation any differently.
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Re:What to Do When a Patient Has a 'Do Not Resuscitate' Tattoo by darpa_escapee on Monday December 04, 2017 @01:37PM (#15846276)
You don't see the difference between the aesthetics of a "Rape Me" tattoo and explicit instructions?
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Re:What to Do When a Patient Has a 'Do Not Resuscitate' Tattoo by criddell on Monday December 04, 2017 @02:06PM (#15846493)
Of course I do. I'm talking about the consequences of getting the words "DO NOT RESUSCITATE" applied to your body along with your signature.

That said, there are lots of situations where I think it would be stupid to have "Rape Me" tattooed to my body. It might have lots of calligraphic merit, but if it's on your face, you probably aren't going to be working the customer service counter at Target.

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Re:What to Do When a Patient Has a 'Do Not Resuscitate' Tattoo by user5994461 on Monday December 04, 2017 @01:11PM (#15846035)
[let's ignore the specific case from this article for a minute]

Let's say that you are unconscious and stopped breathing.

Your brain is deprived of oxygen. Within 3 minutes, the brain cells will start dying and you will suffer irremediable permanent damage, within 10 minutes, you will be effectively dead all things considered.

What do you do? Do you look for a wallet and the cards inside it?

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Re:What to Do When a Patient Has a 'Do Not Resuscitate' Tattoo by signalsmith on Thursday December 07, 2017 @09:03AM (#15870007)
Unfortunately (as per the article), there is precedent for someone getting a DNR tattoo as a joke after losing a bet in poker.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11606-012-2059-...

This implies that people getting tattoos do not treat them as legal documents.

The doctors in this more recent case were justifiably cautious - they did the sensible thing, which is to consult an ethics/legal specialist ASAP, and then follow their advice.

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Re:What to Do When a Patient Has a 'Do Not Resuscitate' Tattoo by crankylinuxuser on Monday December 04, 2017 @01:10PM (#15846024)
Yeah.

You can assist them to suicide in certain jurisdictions, if they want to end it.

It's pretty hard to resuscitate back to life after they've been dead, and put in the freezer for half a day.

The ugly fact is this comes down to a pure legal choice: Was the appropriate legal work done for the DNR? If not, ignore and save them. A live person dealing with legal is better than a dead person's family dealing with legal.

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