The term 'do not resuscitate' should be laid to rest

Every year or so there is a story in the news about a hospital being sued for failing to intervene or, alternately, for wrongfully intervening to resuscitate a patient using advanced life support. As experts in end-of-life communication and decision making, we are sometimes interviewed by the press about such cases.

These mix-ups often have at their center patient, family and health-care provider misunderstanding regarding the meaning of a single term: “do not resuscitate,” (DNR) for short. The term DNR means that a patient should not receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in the event of cardiopulmonary arrest (i.e., when the patient has died; is unresponsive, has no pulse and is not breathing).