Teen declared "brain dead" to be kept on life support while waiting for second opinion

[davidn3600]

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — With a family fighting a hospital to keep their daughter who has been declared brain dead on life support, a California judge on Monday ordered the hospital to keep treating 13-year-old Jahi McMath for another week as a second medical evaluation is conducted.

Jahi experienced complications following a tonsillectomy at Children's Hospital in Oakland.

As her family sat stone-faced in the front row of the courtroom, an Alameda County judge called for Jahi to be independently examined by Paul Graham Fisher, the chief of child neurology at Stanford University School of Medicine.

The judge also ordered the hospital to keep Jahi on a ventilator until Dec. 30, or until further order from the court.

The examination was expected to occur later on Monday, and early Tuesday.

http://www.mininggazette.com/page/content.detail/id/430007/Judge-tells-Calif--hospital-to-keep-treating-teen.html?isap=1&nav=5018

This apparently is not a coma. This is not even a vegetative state. According to the hospital, the brain is no longer functioning.

The hospital also says it wasn't a simple tonsillectomy and there was more involved, but can't go into further detail due to privacy laws.

It's a sad situation.

[Warpy]

1. The parents want a second opinion

I certainly can't fault them for that.

The second opinion is unlikely to give them any good news from what I understand from reading about the case. However, they'll have made it through Xmas and with help from hospital social workers, might have come to terms a little better with her death.

It's a horrible situation and the parents haven't made an unreasonable demand.

[Arkansas Granny]

3. Even if the second opinion is the same, the parents will know

that no more can be done. I'm surprised that the decision to remove life support doesn't require a second opinion.

[JustAnotherGen]

5. +1

ITA

[Warpy]

6. It requires a lot of opinions, actually

from the neurologist who reads the EEG on down to the surgeon, anesthesiologist, and any other doc who has been called in on the case and even her pediatrician. A single doc can't just march in and say 'shut it off.'

It's never done lightly, either, since every one of those docs know lawsuits will likely happen. whether or not it was simply one of those horrible flukes that happen once in a while rather than negligence or malpractice.

The parents are grasping at straws and I can't fault them for that. As I said, the straws will get them through Xmas, at least. I just hope a wise person is among their friends who will tell them that the way for their daughter to live on is if they donate what organs they can to desperately sick people.

[magical thyme]

8. it's not a 2nd opinion. It's a 6th opinion.

The law required 2 independent opinions to begin with, and 2 hospital physicians examined her independently and both found her brain dead.

Then the parents requested their own doctors examine her, and the hospital complied. They brought in 3 specialists, all of whom found her irreversibly brain dead.

The court's chief of neurology is the 6th doctor to examine her and find her irreversibly brain dead.

[Warren DeMontague]

2. Very sad.

I feel for those parents.

[JustAnotherGen]

4. Leave no stone

Unturned. This one hits close to home. Although my dad was not brain dead - the day after Thanksgiving 1998 he had a massive stroke. One in which he lost the ability to swallow.

The hospital was insisting we take him off life support that night.

He walked out of the hospital Christmas Eve morning a month later.

The day he told me he had lung cancer in May 2011 he and my mom had taken a 2 mile each way bike ride into town for ice cream. IE he had a great 13 years.

Brain Dead is different issue - but I don't blame any family that wants to give someone they love a week. That's all we asked for. A chance for one of the world's experts on stroke as a brain injury to get back from vacation.

So personal experience colors the situation for me.

[magical thyme]

7. Not 2nd opinion. 6th opinion. SIXTH.

2 hospital physicians independently examined her and found her irreversibly brain dead.

The parents then requested that their own doctors examine her, and the hospital complied. 3 specialists brought in by the parents found her irreversibly brain dead.

So the parents took it to court, and the judge hired the chief of neurology from another hospital, who today found her irreversibly brain dead.

How many physicians does it take to find an irreversibly brain dead patient treated like every other irreversibly brain dead patient and laid to rest?

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Jahi-McMath-is-brain-dead-doctor-testifies-5091298.php