A 35-year-old man attempted suicide by a shotgun discharge to his abdomen. Although
the patient had been awake, oriented, and conversing about baseball during the emergency
medical services ride to the hospital, he made no mention of his religious beliefs.
He is bleeding profusely when he arrives at the emergency room (ER). He is taken to
the operating room (OR) for abdominal surgery to stop the bleeding and repair his
damaged liver. He has lost a critical amount of blood and is under anesthesia when
a call to the OR comes from an ER nurse who has been approached by the patient's family
and given a Jehovah's Witness card signed by the patient.
The card states: “NO BLOOD TRANSFUSION! As a God-fearing Christian and a believer
in Jehovah's word, the Bible, I hereby demand that blood, in any way, shape or form,
is NOT to be fed into my body; however, blood substitutes may be used in case of extreme
loss of blood.”
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
January 28,
2008
Identification
Copyright
© 2008 Mosby, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
