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Comment by skizm | Hacker News Reader

I think I've seen this House episode before. Spoiler alert: The chick dies in the end.

Seriously though, with these new types of procedures I feel like we need another checkbox next to the organ donor one that says: "Try risky medical procedures if the attending doctor honestly thinks it gives me a better chance of living with no permanent brain damage when compared to conventional treatment." Or probably something a little more succinct.

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I like something more along the lines of "Trust the judgement and expertise of medical professionals, especially in emergency situations."

Well they need to know your wishes. If this procedure has a 60% success rate but 95% of those people only survived with 75% brain function would you want it done? Vs a procedure that has a 10% success rate but 95% of people who survived had complete brain functionality restored.

Personally I'd want to take the 1/10 chance, but I'm sure there are a lot of people who would want to live even if it meant diminished mental capacity.

I agree. I am more than okay for them to try anything possible if I was already dying. I am an organ donor already, why not? At least they tried and the process would be a part of a greater study to improve modern medicine.

I am curious how much organ they could still harvest after performing such procedure though.

It should be harmless to the organs. If they can be carried around in a freezer I'm sure they won't get damaged from being injected with freezing salt water.

How about: "I reserve the right to have my life terminated if I come out of a procedure with no brain activity"? Edit: From the older discussion on HN: "Assuming they (patients) have been getting 'good' CPR for the 10-15 minutes the ER team spent attempting to resuscitate them, there is still a good chance that their brain was not being perfused."

CPR is nearly worthless, but not always.

A 2+% chance to either save a life or reduce the chances of brain damage is worth ~20 minutes. And that's for a full recovery the odds of a partial recovery can be as high as 50%. http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/10/health/cpr-lifesaving-stats/

With current thinking you don't even need to do mouth to mouth disease transmission is a vary low risk.

That's just a living will. Anything done after the procedure can be more deliberate. You only need the shortcut of a checkbox on your ID for things that need to be figured out right away.

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