Rethinking Advance Health Care Directives

Yahoo!/AP: Man Declared Dead Feels “Pretty Good”. Four months after he was declared brain dead and doctors were about to remove his organs for transplant, Zach Dunlap says he feels “pretty good.”

As part of the estate planning process, you may have drafted a living will and a power of attorney for health care to set forth the accepted course of treatment should you become incapacitated and to appoint a person to act on your behalf with regards to medical decisions. You may have directed that medical procedures that will only extend the dying process be withheld should your physician determine that you have an incurable or irreversible terminal injury and that your death is imminent except for death delaying procedures.

Now, the Mayo Clinic describes various states of consciousness ranging from stupor to brain death. It states that “[w]hen brain death occurs, there is no sign of any brain functioning. This condition is not reversible.“

However, in the Yahoo!/AP article, the “brain dead” man is alive and talking about it. So, either he wasn’t “brain dead” or brain death is reversible. Knowing this, do you want your doctors to withhold medical care if you were declared brain dead? Also, if you are acting as a loved one’s power of attorney, will you be able to carry out their wishes and withhold medical care should he or she be declared brain dead? Withholding medical care is never an easy decision to make and knowing that someone recovered after being declared brain dead just made it even harder.