Skip to main content
Key Specialties
Cardiology Diabetology Endocrinology Gastroenterology Geriatrics and Gerontology Gynecology and Obstetrics Hematology Infectious Disease Internal Medicine Nephrology Neurology Oncology Pediatrics Respiratory Medicine Rheumatology Surgery
Congress Coverage
2024 ACC Congress 2023 ESMO Congress 2023 EASD Congress 2023 ERS Congress 2023 ESC Congress
Clinical Collections
Advances in Alzheimer’s

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

LIVE: Thursday 27th June 2024, 18:00-19:30 (CEST)
Join our expert panel to discover why you need to understand the drivers of non-adherence in your patients, and how you can optimize medication adherence in your clinics to drastically improve patient outcomes.
ADVANCED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Critical Care
Published in: Critical Care 6/2005

01-12-2005 | Review

Pro/con ethics debate: When is dead really dead?

Authors: Leslie Whetstine, Stephen Streat, Mike Darwin, David Crippen

Published in: Critical Care | Issue 6/2005

Login to get access

Abstract

Contemporary intensive care unit (ICU) medicine has complicated the issue of what constitutes death in a life support environment. Not only is the distinction between sapient life and prolongation of vital signs blurred but the concept of death itself has been made more complex. The demand for organs to facilitate transplantation promotes a strong incentive to define clinical death in a manner that most effectively supplies that demand. We consider the problem of defining death in the ICU as a function of viable organ availability for transplantation
Literature
1.
2.
Joynt RJ: A new look at death. J Am Med Assoc 1984, 252: 681. 10.1001/jama.252.5.680
3.
4.
Cole D: Statutory definitions of death and the management of terminally ill patients who may become organ donors after death. Kennedy Inst Ethics J 1993, 3: 145-155.CrossRefPubMed
5.
Linko K, Honkavaara P, Salmenperä M: Recovery after discontinued cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Lancet 1982, 1: 106-107. 10.1016/S0140-6736(82)90242-2CrossRefPubMed
6.
7.
Maleck WH, Piper SN, Triem J, Boldt J, Zittel FU: Unexpected return of spontaneous circulation after cessation of resuscitation (Lazarus phenomenon). Resuscitation 1998, 39: 125-128. 10.1016/S0300-9572(98)00119-1CrossRefPubMed
8.
Bos MA: Ethical and legal issues in non-heart-beating organ donation. Transplantation 2005, 79: 1143-1147. 10.1097/01.TP.0000160761.86036.6CCrossRefPubMed
9.
Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences: Non-heartbeating Organ Transplantation: Medical and Ethical Issues in Procurement. Washington, DC: National Academy Press; 1997.
10.
Walker AE: Cerebral Death. 2nd edition. Baltimore-Munich: Urban and Schwarzenberg; 1981:166.
11.
Merkle RC: The technical feasibility of cryonics. Med Hypotheses 1992, 39: 6-16. 10.1016/0306-9877(92)90133-WCrossRefPubMed
12.
Fahy GM, Wowk B, Wu J, Phan J, Rasch C, Chang A, Zendejas E: Cryopreservation of organs by vitrification: perspectives and recent advances. Cryobiology 2004, 48: 157-178. 10.1016/j.cryobiol.2004.02.002CrossRefPubMed
13.
Lemler J, Harris SB, Platt C, Huffman T: The arrest of biological time as a bridge to engineered negligible senescence. Ann NY Acad Sci 2004, 1019: 559-563. 10.1196/annals.1297.104CrossRefPubMed
14.
Martin GM: Brief proposal on immortality: an interim solution. Perspect Biol Med 1971, 14: 339-340.CrossRefPubMed
15.
DeVita MA, Snyder JV, Arnold RM, Siminoff LA: Observations of withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from patients who became non-heart-beating organ donors. Crit Care Med 2000, 28: 1709-1712. 10.1097/00003246-200006000-00002CrossRefPubMed
16.
17.
Veatch RM: The dead donor rule: true by definition. Am J Bioethics 2003, 3: 10-11. 10.1162/152651603321611791CrossRef
18.
19.
20.
Cook R: Coma. London: Macmillan Publishers; 1977.
Metadata
Title
Pro/con ethics debate: When is dead really dead?
Authors
Leslie Whetstine
Stephen Streat
Mike Darwin
David Crippen
Publication date
01-12-2005
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
Critical Care / Issue 6/2005
Electronic ISSN: 1364-8535
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/cc3894

Other articles of this Issue 6/2005

Critical Care 6/2005 Go to the issue

Commentary

Conflicting clinical trial data: a lesson from albumin

Review

Clinical review: Positive end-expiratory pressure and cardiac output

Commentary

Prediction of ventilation weaning outcome: children are not little adults

Commentary

The staging of sepsis: understanding heterogeneity in treatment efficacy

Book report

Hall JB, Murphy P: Handbook of Critical Care, revised edition. London, UK: Science Press; 2003. 278 pp

Commentary

The Surviving Sepsis Campaign sepsis change bundles and clinical practice