NURS 6512: Advanced Health Assessment and Diagnostic Reasoning
Stephanie Nastasi
Week 11: Scenario 2
“A 49-year-old woman with advanced-stage cancer has been admitted to the emergency room with . Her husband and one of her children accompanied the
ambulance.”
This is a common occurrence as a fourteen-year oncology nurse. The final aspect of their
medical treatment will be rough on both the family and the practitioner when faced with the
dying patient. In this case, an active cardiac arrest of a terminally ill cancer patient arrives in the
emergency department. With the family present, along with medical professionals, together, they
can determine the patient’s need for end-of-life treatment. It is up to everyone to support the
family and the patient in this decision performed (Rosetti, Rabinstein & Oddo, 2016).
This reflects the legal issue of whether or not and who decides whether to continue or end
CPR. We ought to be advocates for the patient as . In this case, the
patient’s previous records will be reviewed to get a better understanding of the patient’s health
history. Additionally, medical advance directives must be identified and examined to see if the
patient has any instructions for a DNR (Nelson, 2017). Everyone must conform to what the
patient’s wishes are. It is ultimately up to the patient on how they live and what treatment they
wish to choose to obtain. If no advanced directives are located or of none have been made, the
decision to stop CPR would be left to the family. When explaining to family members about
CPR, the consequences of the discussion are a difficult topic. There are numerous reactions and a
lack of knowledge about what occurs during and after CPR (Nelson, 2017). The family needs to
understand fully how and when to consent to stop CPR to make an informed decision. This is the
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practitioner’s responsibility to educate the family with this knowledge to ensure that everyone
understands what it involves to stop CPR.
End of life conversation should, therefore, be charted in the patient’s chart to make it
known that proper planning and communication with the families had taken place before any
decision had been reached (Johnson, 2016). After the family has commenced, CPR will then
proceed or cease, and proper treatment will then be administered for the patient and the family.
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References
Johnson, L. S. M. (2016). The for Reasonable Accommodation of Conscientious Objections
to Declarations of Brain Death. Journal Of Bioethical Inquiry, 13(1), 105–115.
Nelson, A. (2017). Determining Brain Death: Basic Approach and Controversial
Issues. American Journal of Critical Care, 26(6), 496–500. https://doi-
org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.4037/ajcc2017540
Rossetti, A. O., Rabinstein, A. A., & Oddo, M. (2016). Neurological prognostication of outcome
in patients in coma after cardiac arrest. The Lancet. Neurology, 15(6), 597–609.
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