A doctor “pretending” to do CPR on a patient might seem like an open-and-shut case of malpractice. But some medical professionals believe that faking CPR (a “slow code” in medical parlance) is, in some cases, ethical — even “essential.”
“If a physician is facing the sort of trilemma of doing a slow code, sincere CPR, or just saying to the family, ‘no, I won’t do it,’” medical ethicist Parker Crutchfield said on this week’s episode of STATus Report, “the act that produces the most benefit and the least harm is the slow code.”
That’s because real-life CPR is nothing like it appears on TV and in movies. It’s quite brutal. Chest compressions need to be done with enough force to squeeze a person’s heart muscle. That amount of force can easily break a rib or crack the sternum. And for doctors with patients nearing the end of life, that presents a dilemma.
This week, host Alex Hogan explores that dilemma with Crutchfield and his bioethicist colleague Jason Wasserman. Crutchfield and Wasserman edited a special edition of the journal Bioethics on the topic of slow codes — and wrote a STAT First Opinion piece about it. The video features a condensed version of this week’s “First Opinion Podcast” episode. You can hear the whole conversation here.
