Perspectives on practicing procedures on the newly dead.
Invasive procedures are commonly practiced and taught on newly deceased patients (the newly dead) in emergency and critical care settings. Justified by the claim of necessity for professional competence to provide lifesaving care, these procedures, commonly hidden from public and professional scrutiny, are frequently performed on the newly dead without consent from family or interested parties.


OBJECTIVE
To describe older adults' beliefs about practicing and teaching lifesaving procedures on the newly dead and their belief about the requirement for consent for these procedures.


METHODS
An exploratory, descriptive design used a seven-item Likert-type instrument with open-ended questions to gather data from a convenience sample of 100 adults in two metropolitan cities.


RESULTS
The typical respondent was 74.5 years old (mean; range of 55-95 years), female (71%), and married (44.8%) or widowed (36.5%). Most respondents were high school graduates (94%), and 63% had some level of college education. The majority of the sample was white (75%), they were predominately Protestant (40%), and 72% reported their health as good to excellent. Most study participants believed that practicing or teaching lifesaving skills on a newly dead body is acceptable (54%), and that provision for consent is necessary (80%). Planning to donate organs and preferring an autopsy were associated with agreeing that using the newly dead body for skill practice was acceptable; preferring cremation was related to believing that consent for skill practice on the newly dead was not necessary.


CONCLUSIONS
The participants in this study value the use of the newly dead to practice and teach lifesaving skills, and believe that consent for this practice is necessary.
Oman
Kathleen S
KS
Department of Emergency Medicine, The Center for Bioethics and Humanities, and the School of Nursing at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, CO 80231, USA. kathy.oman@uch.edu
Armstrong
John David
JD
Stoner
Martha
M
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001293:Attitude to Death; D002102:Cadaver; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003643:Death; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012151:Resuscitation / Q000193:education*; D012494:Sampling Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
Death and Euthanasia; Empirical Approach; Professional Patient Relationship