Sandeep Jauhar's latest NY Times op-ed: "How Do You Want to Die?"
Sandeep Jauhar's latest for the
New York Times explores the complicated realities of end of life care.
❝ Like most patients, mine wanted to live as long as possible. So when I brought up the option of a small implantable defibrillator for his failing heart, he immediately said yes. The device would be inserted in his chest to monitor his heartbeat and apply an electrical shock if the rhythm turned into something dangerous. It was like the paddles in the emergency room, I told him, but it would always be inside him.
In truth I wasn’t sure if a defibrillator was really such a good idea. My patient was near the end of his life. He might live longer than a year, but certainly no more than five. Patients with heart failure mostly die in one of two ways: either from a sudden, “lights-out” arrhythmia that stops the heart, or from insidious pump failure, in which the heart increasingly fails to meet the metabolic demands of the body. The former, which the defibrillator would help prevent, is quick and relatively painless. The latter, which the defibrillator would make more likely, is protracted and physically agonizing.[NYTimes.com]
| SANDEEP JAUHAR is a New York Times columnist & author of the acclaimed memoirs, Intern & Doctored. Watch him discuss his bestselling memoir Doctored below, and learn more about booking Sandeep for your next event today. |
