This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Simeon Pollack, MD
Bronx, NY

Arch Intern Med. 1997;157(4):468.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

I thank DeBuono for her remarks. Although I believe her comments to be mistaken, I appreciate her interest.

The New York State Public Health Law concerning DNR (Section 29B) begins

... it is appropriate for an attending physician, in certain circumstances, to issue an order not to attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation of a patient where appropriate consent has been obtained.¹

It continues, "Presumption in favor of resuscitation." (Note: not presumption of consent to resuscitation.)

The law then goes on to say that there can be no DNR order based on futility without permission of the patient or his or her surrogate, except when the patient has no capacity to decide and there is no surrogate.¹ Thus, the law would have virtually every dying patient receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation, no matter how hopeless the effort, unless there is permission to forgo the procedure. Physicians writing to complain to the New York State . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?