When Death Isn't Dead: Implicit Social Rationing during Resuscitative Efforts.

In this article the author addresses the relationship between social death and clinical-biological death during resuscitative efforts in cases of sudden death in Western societies. This paper is based on 112 observations of resuscitative efforts over a fourteen-month period in the emergency departments (EDs) of two Midwestern hospitals: one level-1 and one level-2 trauma center. I focused my observations on medical out-of-hospital resuscitative efforts. This research was approved by the institutional review board of the two hospitals and by the University of Illinois, Chicago, Illinois. I was paged with the other resuscitation team members whenever a resuscitative effort was needed in these emergency departments. I managed to attend half the resuscitative efforts occurring in the two EDs during the observation period. During resuscitative efforts, I tried to stand at the foot of the patient and take note of the interaction. Occasionally, I would help the staff lift a patient, retrieve drugs or blankets, and serve as a source of information about the precise sequence of drugs in the resuscitative efforts.