When Obama gets around to forming his ‘death panels’*, surely Qadgop will be a leading panel member! 
*He’s sure taking his time, isn’t he. Nearly done with his terms, and still nothing.
No, not really. Such cases are very, very rare.
What’s the matter with the classic, yet elegantly simple “He’s dead, Jim!”? I bet Qadgop uses that all the time.
You have to have a salt shaker handy for that one.
How about I just wave the microphone from a portable tape recorder over the body?
Well yes , people have been found alive with their face covered by a sheet, or in the morgue, hearse, coffin… even on the way to the ovens.
there is some truth in it.
- various bad heart beats may mean the pulse is hard to detect. So how about put a stethescope on ? But these are chronic conditions and the relatives/colleagues/doctor would know that person had it ??.. if someone with a bad heart is injured or becomes very sick they would be difficult to keep alive… Anyone with the serious illness that gets another serious illness is unstable… And there could be the knowledge that if the person has an attack they won’t come good. Is the person already on "do not resuscitate " status ? Their heart isn’t going to restart itself.
Indeed looking through the list, Lazarus syndrome - Wikipedia
there seems to be a rather sinister 2nd story… in many cases, the patient died within two weeks , in hospital, of the first declaration of death…
In most of the cases listed, there had been attempts to resuscitate and gave up… It seems that they should check on patients 5 , 10, 15 minutes after first declaring death… If they thought they had a chance to resuscitate .
Of those who returned to reasonable health, its unclear how long they were without a pulse or breath… they may have recovered vitals shortly after resuscitation stopped…
2. They aren’t dead until they are warm and dead !.
People who have been cooled down by snow or icy water have been brought back to life many many minutes ( 30 ? ) after they last breathed…
In fact cooling down the body is used during surgery, eg heart or lung transplant, to keep the person alive for a period of time with what would ordinarily be dangerous lack of oxygenated blood flow.
One of my favorite TV moments was on CSI: NY, where someone being interrogated began to have a seizure, and the cop responded by IMMEDIATELY beginning CPR, without checking for breathing, or a pulse-- or clearing the guy’s mouth, and he’d been vomiting. It’s one thing to save someone’s life, and what’s a little aspirated emitus, and quite another to force a conscious, albeit altered, person to inhale vomit. Anyway, after about five chest thrusts, someone else finally checks his wrist-- while the other guy is still doing thrusts, mind you-- and says “He’s got a pulse.” I’ll bet he does.
IANAD, nor any other type of medical personnel, unless you count former Candy-striper, just someone certified in CPR, and I could tell how laughable that was.
Yes, I believe the protocol is to do CPR unless the person is found in obvious rigor, or decay, or has been decapitated or had some head injury where there in brain matter all over. If you discover a person unconscious, but warm, and without rigor, I’m pretty sure you are supposed to assume they could be revived, despite the odds against it.
I don’t think cops usually pronounce people dead but EMTs and nurses do. Depends on the state like everything else but the usual procedure for EMTs who have found someone dead or have been unable to revive someone, is to call the ED doctor, tell them the circumstances and pronounce them. In nursing homes, the nurse would call the patients doctor and tell them the circumstances. This is in cases where there is no reasonable chance of resuscitation or a DNR is in place. The doctor never sees these patients.
“Stay away from the light, Fluffy!!!”
They generally must get a physician to do that deed.
I’ve pronounced a lot more people dead by phone than in person, when the nurse tells me they can’t get a pulse or hear a heartbeat.
Of course 99% of these are expected deaths, in hospice or with terminal diagnoses to begin with, with DNR orders in place. We get a bit more technical with folks slumped over on the street or in a hallway, doing CPR and getting EKGs.
It really does boggle the mind though, how defibrillators work in movies and TV reality. Someone’s heart stops. The machine goes BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. You shock them. Nothing. Shock them again. Still nothing! One last time! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Sigh of relief.
That’s pretty much exactly opposite of how defibrillators are actually used. Is any other technology (aside from computer hacking, because duh) portrayed so consistently incorrectly?
That still seems like an awfully high death rate, seeing how many COPDers and other chronic lung disease patients see pulmonologists.
Maybe this guy has subspecialty certification in diseases of the moribund. :dubious:
I’ve had a few alert, breathing, talking patients who I haven’t been able to auscultate a heartbeat on *with *a stethoscope. That’s always a bit disconcerting. Some people have very quiet heartbeats, or a thick layer of fat that’s hard to hear through. In those cases, I can often hear something at the aortic or pulmonic listening spots instead of the apical/mitral where nurses are taught to listen. But then, I just have a measly Littman II stethoscope, which is a decent stethoscope for most work, but it’s not nearly as sensitive as an expensive cardiologist’s specialty stethoscope.
Once I had to make a 911 call on an unresponsive patient with an opioid overdose, and I couldn’t hear or feel a damn thing anywhere. Couldn’t get any blood pressure, either. His heart was apparently still beating somewhat, because he survived with his mental faculties intact, but I really wasn’t sure what was going to happen when the paramedics got there. (Worst day ever as a home health nurse. Wasn’t my trainee’s best first day on the job either, I bet.)
I would bet that in those cases where death was pronounced prematurely, the quality of the stethoscope was at least partly to blame, and the experience level of the listener is definitely a factor as well.
OTOH you are a pathologist, so I wouldn’t point any fingers about patient death rates. 
His wife, my cousin, was a neonatologist. Bunches of her patients died too.
It’s like the idea that sick people should never go into the hospital - people die there!
Regards,
Shodan
And now for more fun for doctors, a new form of artificial heart uses a continual flow pump so there is no heartbeat at all. Quadgop better be careful! Meet the first HEARTLESS man who is able to live without a heartbeat or a PULSE | Daily Mail Online
I worked with a guy who was in a bad car wreck and the EMT’s called him dead and covered his body with a blanket so passing motorist wouldn’t gawk. Then they saw his leg shaking. He was in the hospital for about six month and made a full recovery. He then dedicated the rest of his life to becoming a crack addict, borrowed money from all his friends, left his family in ruins and eventually OD’d in a cheap hotel room after leaving a path of destruction behind him. All because he didn’t see god while dead on the side of the road.