Bill Frist: Perspective on extraordinary measures while in practice

[choosybeggar]

A striking feature of the Schiavo affair is Sen. Frist’s support for Ms. Schiavo’s parents. As a physician myself, my experience is that MD’s generally oppose such extraordinary means to sustain life. Does any record exist of Sen. Frist’s record on this issue while he was in practice?

[ElvisL1ves]

Yes, he’s done it.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has championed the “rescue” of Terri Schiavo, is a renowned heart surgeon who has pulled the plug on a “regular basis,” his office acknowledged yesterday.

But Frist (R-Tenn.) ended life support only when the patient was ruled brain-dead, and he is convinced Schiavo is not brain-dead.

“He certainly has a lot of clinical experience” in the withdrawal of life support, said Frist spokeswoman Amy Call.
…
In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Frist recalled moral debate into “Why is somebody dead when there’s no brain activity, but everything else is warm and beating?” from the early days of organ transplants. “Finally, we came to a consensus, an ethical framework, that people can generally agree to and have faith in.”

What that framework is, we don’t know.

He has not actually, you know, technicallyexamined this patient.

[shelbo]

@ElvisL1ves

He has not actually, you know, technically examined this patient.

Yet, “he is convinced Schiavo is not brain-dead.”

I’ve never met Bill Frist, but I am convinced that he is a horse’s ass.

[Strainger]

“I would cry, but then I’d have to put a condom on my face.”

-Jon Stewart (from memory, so I may have botched it)

[John_Kentzel-Griffin]

@shelbo

Yet, “he is convinced Schiavo is not brain-dead.”

I’ve never met Bill Frist, but I am convinced that he is a horse’s ass.

shelbo,

This is not the Pit. Watch your choice of words in this forum.

Since ElvisL1ves’s post and like provides an adiquate answer to the General Question, I’m going to close this before it becomes a debate or more Pit-worthy.

DrMatrix - GQ Moderator