this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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We've seen it so many times. A young, handsome man rushed into the emergency room with a gunshot wound. A flurry of white coats racing the clock: CPR, the heart zapper, the order for a scalpel. Stat! Then finally, the flatline.

This is Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider's biggest pet peeve. Where are the TV scripts about the elderly grandmothers dying of heart failure at home? What about an episode on the daughter still grieving her father's fatal lung cancer, ten years later?

"Acute, violent death is portrayed many, many, many times more than a natural death," says Ungerleider, an internal medicine doctor and founder of End Well, a nonprofit focused on shifting the American conversation around death.

Don't even get her started on all the miraculous CPR recoveries where people's eyes flutter open and they pop out of the hospital the next day.

All these television tropes are causing real harm, she says, and ignore the complexity and choices people face at the end of life.

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[–] Chetzemoka@startrek.website 58 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

As a critical care nurse, the miraculous CPR recoveries are such a horrible disservice to our patients and their families. CPR is not two minutes of some light exercise and then the person wakes up and is ok forever.

It's 20-30 mins of intense, brutal, scary, undignified activity followed by best case scenario, we put you in the ICU, deliberately make you hypothermic for a day or two, and hope you wake up. That increases your chances of surviving the incident to a whopping 64%.

Surviving to discharge and having a meaningful recovery is a whole other ballgame, and depends a lot on the condition you were in when you had cardiac arrest in the first place. Your elderly grandpa with cancer, sepsis, bad kidneys, etc. is probably not going to go home. Your middle-aged wife who came in because she was having a heart attack actually stands a good chance.

Movies like to show people shocking a flatlined patient who just pops up and walks away when in reality presenting fully flatlined means you're 2-3 times less likely to be resuscitated at all.

I'm happy to leave some leeway in fictionalized depictions of medical care for the sake of story progression. But the complete ignorance currently common in fictional resuscitation scenarios feeds a really malignant sort of magical thinking that keeps us torturing elderly people. I'd really appreciate less of that in my job.

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 10 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I heard that Defibrillators too don't work on stopped hearts - only weak pulses, and if you're hit with one you're not standing up instantly even if you wanted to. It's days maybe weeks of recovery

Can anyone confirm?

[–] Chetzemoka@startrek.website 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yes, a stopped heart shows up as a flat line with no activity on an EKG. We don't shock people when their hearts have completely stopped because it doesn't do anything and can actually damage the heart. Defibrillators are named that because they're intended to shock a heart that is in a chaotic electric rhythm called fibrillation where the heart is just kind of shivering instead of beating fully.

[–] lemann@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 10 months ago

Thanks for the helpful info! Didn't know about fibrillation so this was very educational. I previously assumed that defibrillators were for flatlined hearts 😳

[–] DrRatso@lemmy.ml 8 points 10 months ago

Great reply there already, I just want to add that a timely defibrillator shock can have the patient go from unconscious without a pulse to alert and talking very quickly, provided that the time between the start of the shockable rhythm and the shock is relatively small.

Nowadays we have AED devices in many public places that any bystander could attach to a patient receiving CPR, the machine will analyse the rhythm and deliver a shock if needed.

[–] kuberoot@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

From what I understood, defibrillators basically stop the heart, letting it restart on its own in a proper rhythm.

[–] Chetzemoka@startrek.website 6 points 10 months ago

You are correct, and we actually also use them on people who are not actively dead, but are having a bad heart rhythm that is causing intolerable symptoms.

The shocking dead people to resuscitate them thing, the part that everyone is familiar with, is when the ventricles of someone's heart have started quivering in a chaotic rhythm called ventricular fibrillation or vfib. If someone is experiencing vfib, they're actually dead because vfib invariably degrades into full stop flatline very quickly. Shocking someone in vfib briefly stops their heart in hopes that it will reboot itself into a rhythm that is compatible with life.

But the right atrium can also fall into fibrillation. You've heard about this on TV (if you're in the US); we call that afib. Afib is compatible with life, because the ventricles are the main part of the pump and can continue to beat even if the right atrium goes a little haywire. But often that beating isn't very effective and people will experience low blood pressure and shortness of breath. And the right atrium isn't clearing blood out of itself effectively in afib, which can cause the blood to clot in the heart and lead to a stroke if a piece of clot breaks off.

So, you may be thinking to yourself, wait, ventricular fibrillation we use a defibrillator, so what about atrial fibrillation, and that is correct, we can use a defibrillator to shock someone in afib, reboot their heart, and hope they go back into a normal, more effective rhythm. (We do mildly sedate people before doing that lol.) Sometimes that works, sometimes we have to just control afib with meds and we have to keep them on blood thinners to prevent a clot in the heart.

And lastly, there's a more complicated heart rhythm called Supraventricular Tachycardia or SVT that sometimes also responds to being shocked. We try a couple of other treatments first for SVT, but shocking can work. And again, people are mildly sedated for that.

[–] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 7 points 10 months ago

As a CPR/first aid instructor I'd be happy if we could just get a few good CPR depictions. Hard surface, proper compressions WITH counting out loud, maybe do an ABC assessment to begin with... And if we for once could get compressions on a bare chest, that'd be great.

Not looking for an instructional video when watching Reacher. Realism is OK, and people not knowing CPR is unfortunately real, but maybe medical dramas could get it right.

[–] khannie@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

Learned a lot there. Thanks!

[–] Candelestine@lemmy.world 51 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Fuckin a that's a great idea. But also, violent death should be portrayed more accurately. Less John Wick, more Saving Private Ryan. Less cool, more horror. Lot more horror.

Our wish to protect our youth from depictions of horror is very heavily contributing to our worlds problems, in a very large number of ways. They're frankly just deciding they're perfectly okay with actually just doing it irl, far too commonly. Not knowing how it'd actually look and feel is a major component of this imo.

[–] spamfajitas@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago (2 children)

There's plenty of horror that really needs to be shown with "natural" deaths as well. All of the shaking and pained gasping that typically happens leading up to the final moments should scare the absolute shit out of everyone.

It's just one of those things society tries to hide and pretend went peacefully like childbirth. The only actually peaceful death I've ever witnessed was my dogs being put down by a very nice vet.

[–] Duranie@literature.cafe 14 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I work in hospice, so comfort and a peaceful passing is always our goal. There are some deaths that are more unfortunate than others, but with support the majority of deaths under care thankfully aren't "shaking and pained gasping." Still far from the Hollywood version of being coherent enough to pass along one final message before heading into a bright light. When these types of media are the most common source of information regarding death, it can definitely be more challenging to prepare a family or patient for what's to come.

[–] ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 10 months ago

That “final moments” thing is hard.

The last time my mother was remotely coherent was about a week and a half before she died (cancer, hospice, at home, 2010 when I was 23), and she said some really awful stuff to me and about me that still sticks with me today..

I know her brain was heavily misfiring at that point, because she also called me mommy and curled up in my lap, but it still never really leaves. It’s an incredibly painful memory I have of her last moments of being able to communicate.. and I had/have no idea how to handle it.

Also that whole closing the eyes thing? Yeah, I was incredibly disturbed that that doesn’t work at all. There’s a reason they cover the face with a sheet.

[–] _ffiresticks_@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Upvote and thanks for doing the meaningful, difficult work that you do.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago

Peacefully like childbirth

My mom would like to have a word with you

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[–] Fermion@feddit.nl 36 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Using a single punch as a quick way to knock someone out and they're just fine when they wake up is my pet peave. Any hit hard enough to cause a blackout is likely to bring long term damage.

[–] khannie@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I used to fight professionally in my youth (muay Thai). I've seen people out cold a good few times and every time they were up and walking minutes later. Concussed for sure but otherwise fine.

The worst I had was an 8 count from a head kick where I couldn't remember after the fight if I'd won. Kept asking my wife. I felt mentally foggy for a while but was fine within about two weeks.

[–] Fermion@feddit.nl 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My sister has a few years she can't really remember resulting from a series of concussions. Head injuries shouldn't be treated casually.

[–] khannie@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

Apologies, that wasn't my intent. I was just trying to get across that people do get moving quickly after being knocked out. It's usually caused by a sharp drop in blood pressure (that's why chin shots are so effective, it momentarily cuts off blood supply) so folks do get up quickly after it.

Concussions are serious. I had a rule that I would stop fighting after my third because your chances of suffering depression later in life or lasting damage after 3 increases quite dramatically after that. Luckily for me I got too old first. :)

[–] diffcalculus@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Well.... Did you win?? Don't leave us hanging!

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[–] Zaphod@discuss.tchncs.de 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"Acute, violent death is portrayed many, many, many times more than a natural death,"

Is a gunshot wound not considered a natural death in America?

[–] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] L4rr@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Do you mean K-12 education? Chapeau! So what is it after that, death from "Freedoom" (TM)?

[–] natecox@programming.dev 22 points 10 months ago (2 children)

What about an episode on the daughter still grieving her father's fatal lung cancer, ten years later?

This would be very affirming to see represented honestly.

I just had my second Christmas without my dad because of cancer, and there are moments when I still feel like I am in the hospital room watching him die. It’s hard to even talk about because it seems like two years later it shouldn’t hurt so bad and I don’t think people really understand how grief works.

[–] randomuser38529@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sorry for your loss.


Obligatory: fuck cancer!

[–] natecox@programming.dev 4 points 10 months ago

Much appreciated.

Fuck cancer indeed.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My dad died 10 years ago and I still grieve for him. Not all the time, obviously, but I'll watch a movie that I think he would like or I'll read an article that I wish I could talk to him about and I grieve. He died when my daughter was four. She was asking about him the other day and I grieved again talking about him. I had to hold back tears. A couple of years ago, I watched a TV adaptation of an off-Broadway musical he loved and I was crying almost the entire time despite it being (mostly) a comedy. I'm fighting back tears right now.

For that matter, I still grieve my first dog who died 15 years ago.

I don't know that grief ever entirely goes away.

I'm sorry about your father.

[–] natecox@programming.dev 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It’s hard for sure. I shared a lot of common interests with my dad, so there are many things I do that I associate with him and it always hurts to do alone.

Silly things, too. I nearly broke into tears on Christmas because my wife gifted me a box of candy that my dad loved and I wasn’t able to find anywhere.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I totally understand. Like the musical. It's about a gay man dealing with his former wife and child and also his first new boyfriend after coming out. And it's really funny. My dad (not because he could relate, he was CisHet) absolutely loved the music and listened to the cast album all the time.

And I just watched the entire time with tears streaming down my face.

[–] jas0n@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Wow. I can relate to you and Nate's conversation so closely. I lost my dad to brain cancer 2 years ago. We both enjoyed discussing the latest discoveries in astronomy. Now, I don't follow anything about it. But every time I come across new jwst image on here, my eyes start leaking.

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[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 22 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Somebody gets knocked out, wakes up THE NEXT FUCKING DAY as if they had a good night's sleep, get up and walk away.

If you get a blow to the head and you're out for more than 10 seconds, you'll likely have damage. If you're out for minutes, you're likely having lasting issues and a long recovery period.

Similarly : people being sedated with a towel with chloroform, or a dart in the neck and they wake up the next day. I'm far from being an expert but I do know it's VERY hard to keep him and unconscious safely, it's why anesthesiologists make so much money. If you take someone out the other way there is a good chance they simply won't wake up.

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[–] ThunderWhiskers@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Lol last night we were watching Reacher, the dude received head trauma from multiple sources including a baseball swung crowbar to the side of the head, THEN he drowned a little bit. He finished killing all the bad guys and goes home for a nice hot recovery shower. Dude definitely suffered some brain trauma but a hot rinse and he's all good.

[–] c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

Thad is immune to concussions now.

[–] phx@lemmy.ca 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Or just look at Home Alone reviewed by trauma surgeons

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[–] JustZ@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

I feel strongly about this. People are clueless thanks to these depictions.

CPR works outside the hospital 5% of the time and inside the hospital 20% of the time. If you need CPR, you're very, very likely going to die. Those that do recover are often permanently disabled.

The article mentions the depictions of recoveries several times. Getting CPR and then getting up off the ground, or walking out of the hospital the next day. Nah. Usually there's days or weeks in the hospital and months of rehab.

I also think realistic depictions of shootings and shooting deaths would significantly reduce gun violence. Even the movies that show over-the-top blood splatter and stuff fail to capture the actual gore and misery of someone dying from gunshots, bleeding out alone.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Don’t even get her started on all the miraculous CPR recoveries where people’s eyes flutter open and they pop out of the hospital the next day.

The next day? In the first Jurassic Park movie, the kid gets CPR and is running away from dinosaurs minutes later!

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

There's at least the (very weak) justification that the fibrillation is externally caused. Once the current is removed, the heart can sort itself out and start beating spontaneously. In that case, the CPR actually did nothing useful. If done right, however, it would be running with broken or dislocated ribs.

[–] Hotdogman@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What do you mean I can't just "walk it off" if I get shot right next to my heart?

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[–] Zomboomafoo@slrpnk.net 7 points 10 months ago

I'd recommend Andor to this doctor, and also anyone

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