Don't buy what this guy is saying. He's wrong on so many levels.
Brain death diagnosis requires several tests to be determined.
Cerebral Angiogram or nuclear scan are tests that show if blood flow is getting to the brain.If there is no blood flow to the brain, it cannot be alive. These brains are not "perfectly salvageable"
The lungs and heart can be kept going without a living brain with ventilators and IV meds.
Another study we do is the apnea test. Remove the person from the ventilator circuit and see if they can draw breaths. If they don't they are brain dead. Of course if your brain is gone there is no way to stimulate breathing.
Problem is that lay people, probably this bonehead, and many doctors confuse/interchange brain death with being persistently vegetative. They are not the same.
Thanks for sharing your actual real-world experience! Do you think perhaps there are doctors or institutions out there that do manipulate tests / results in order to harvest the organs of a person that could have been saved?
No. We won't do an apnea test until any given paralytics are gone. You can test the patient with a nerve stimulator to ensure they are not under the influence of paralytics.
That said, you are right in that either sketchiness or mistakes happen
My older brother was declared brain dead after an acute episode with hepatitis. I sat with him all night and talked to him. About 3AM, he woke up and started talking. He lived another 6 months.
Don't buy what this guy is saying. He's wrong on so many levels. Brain death diagnosis requires several tests to be determined. Cerebral Angiogram or nuclear scan are tests that show if blood flow is getting to the brain.If there is no blood flow to the brain, it cannot be alive. These brains are not "perfectly salvageable" The lungs and heart can be kept going without a living brain with ventilators and IV meds. Another study we do is the apnea test. Remove the person from the ventilator circuit and see if they can draw breaths. If they don't they are brain dead. Of course if your brain is gone there is no way to stimulate breathing. Problem is that lay people, probably this bonehead, and many doctors confuse/interchange brain death with being persistently vegetative. They are not the same.
People have lost a lot of trust.
For good reason.
You are right. Medicine has lost its way in many places. But not all of us are bad
What a hero
But while you are posting here who's doing the electric shuffle down the hallway in your stead?
Thanks for sharing your actual real-world experience! Do you think perhaps there are doctors or institutions out there that do manipulate tests / results in order to harvest the organs of a person that could have been saved?
Yes. Sadly, medicine is filled with lots of sketchy docs.
'Remove the person from the ventilator circuit and see if they can draw breaths'. They could have paralytics on board.
No. We won't do an apnea test until any given paralytics are gone. You can test the patient with a nerve stimulator to ensure they are not under the influence of paralytics. That said, you are right in that either sketchiness or mistakes happen
Because we all know how closely they follow laws.
My older brother was declared brain dead after an acute episode with hepatitis. I sat with him all night and talked to him. About 3AM, he woke up and started talking. He lived another 6 months.