(Not sure where to post this, I don’t see it as a Great Debate or a pitting - mods move it if necessary.)
A local news station reported that the Lance Armstrong yellow “Live Strong” wristbands are worrying some hospitals because they use a yellow wristband on DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) patients. So don’t wear your yellow wristband to the hospital if you would like to be resuscitated.
So does this qualify as some sort of irony?
I suppose it might, but it’s not like it’s an insurmountable problem. If some-one has a DNR, they’re probably past the point where the LiveStrong sentiment applies. Or the hospital can switch to another color DNR band, They use red here, IIRC.
I think the opposite situation would be the one to be concerned about.
“Hey, this guy’s got a yellow bracelet on. Hold the paddles. That’s a wrap.”
:eek:
Somehow I think the hospitals might have a policy in place to look carefully at anything of this nature. They’re funny about those lawsuit-inducing sorts of things.
I have to assume that the yellow DNR bracelet has patient identification on it, just like other hospital ID bracelets. The LiveStrong bracelet doesn’t.
I would like to wear a LiveStrong bracelet, but can’t, as they are too small for my wrist.
I like to hope that people who spent 10+ years in college earning their medical degree could tell the difference.
I’d like to hope that they could tell the difference between “Positive TB history” and “Negative TB history” and which one applies to them.
They can’t.
-Troy McClure SF, hospital Employee Health Services.
Yeesh. If a doctor can’t tell the difference between a tag indicating a DNR, and a bracelet someone is wearing…I’d have to question their medical skills to begin with.
I’d like to believe all that too, but I’d also like to believe that a person could go in for an amputation and not have the wrong foot removed, or get surgery and not get home to discover a scalpel inside of them.
This reminds me of that urban legend where the janitor had to sweep the floor and accidentally wound up unplugging the coma patients so he could plug in the vacuum.
Thanks for finding the story link, continuity. I had looked for a link but couldn’t find one, not even on the website for the TV station that aired the story, but I knew I had seen it. I just decided to go ahead and post without a link because I didn’t want to waste a good title.
Like some others I don’t think I would completely trust a hospital to be able to tell the difference in an emergency situation. It would be a bit upsetting to be in the hospital for something minor and accidentally choke on your jello and code, only to have the nurses come in and see your yellow bracelet and decide not to bother to resuscitate you. Hopefully, they wouldn’t make that mistake in ER with someone just brought in but you never know.