Fellow Inmates Ease Pain of Dying in Jail

[brimcmike]

New York Times, Sunday, October 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/health/18hospice.html

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[paiute]

great article, but I don't think a nurse can pronounce someone dead. I know Chowchilla Prison has a hospice (it's a women's prison), but we don't have one here at Corcoran. I think we should start one.

You do have to be careful. Some inmates will prey on others, like stealing medicines or food, or worse.

 

[KHE]

great article, but I don't think a nurse can pronounce someone dead. I know Chowchilla Prison has a hospice (it's a women's prison), but we don't have one here at Corcoran. I think we should start one.

You do have to be careful. Some inmates will prey on others, like stealing medicines or food, or worse.

I stumbled across this thread.

I'm not sure if it varies from state to state, but I'm an optometrist in Connecticut and I see a number of patients in area convalescent, hospice centers and nursing homes.

Here, doctors are allowed to make notes in the chart saying that a nurse can pronounce someone dead and this is very commonly done when patients are close to the end.

 

[paiute]

i have never seen a nurse pronounce someone here in california, but i work in a hospital. perhaps it's done in hospices.

 

[TXCardiofellow]

In TX, two nurses can pronounce - one must be an RN.

 

[dpmd]

I'm in California and my husband works at a SNF. I don't think he can legally pronounce them, but he makes a phone call to the doc and based on the info he provides the doc pronounces over the phone. That is just for the hospice folks though. For the full code people he still has to call 911 even if they are cold and stiff.

When I have a withdrawal of care case it is the nurse who lets me know when to come by and pronounce. It isn't like MD's get some super secret training on how to tell someone is dead. The first time I did it I had to ask the nurse what I was supposed to do.

 

[shopsteward]

When I have a withdrawal of care case it is the nurse who lets me know when to come by and pronounce. It isn't like MD's get some super secret training on how to tell someone is dead. The first time I did it I had to ask the nurse what I was supposed to do.

As a non-medical professional, it occured to me that you may have identified a bit of a gap somewhere in the long years of medical training.

But only after