A few months ago a patient came to the hospital with a life threatening aortic aneurysm. He had surgery to repair it however unfortunately during the surgery he suffered a massive stroke. After the stroke he showered clots throughout his body leaving him comatose and in a vegetative state. He remained in the ICU for several weeks on life support with little to no hope of awakening.
He was an immigrant from a country far away and he still had many relatives living in that country. Hospital staff tried many times to speak with the man's family regarding his grim prognosis and possible decisions to withdraw life support. Each time the subject was approached, staff was told that they needed to wait for the rest of the family (who weren't even immediate family) to arrive from his home country.
We waited and waited continuing to care for the man as best we could but nothing changed. We were merely taking care of a body, a shell, the person he once was had already gone. We were running out of time and we needed to come up with a plan.
Finally someone suggested the idea of placing a web cam in the patients room and having a family conference over the Internet. I must admit that is a very creative plan and even a good plan if we were looking for a way to include the rest of his family. However, it didn't stop there... Staff were then asked (by the family members present) to keep the web cam on while withdrawing life support until the patient finally passed. I suppose it's not like we were posting this on youtube but it certainly did make me go hmmm...
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