In the early 60s, I worked at the Cleveland Clinic for a couple of years. I worked in the Department of Artificial Organs. My primary task was as an electronics technician.
Dr. Kolff was the famous inventor of the artificial kidney, and kidney dialysis centers are all over the world now.
It was common for us to have a patient on life support using a variety of machines. Those machines were either standard or unique medical devices built in our lab. In any case, they were my responsibility.
These patients were mostly long-term, and over time we had gotten to know their families very well. At some point, we could do nothing more for the patient. In these cases, death was better than life.
Since I was in charge of the equipment, it was my job to turn it off at the appropriate time. It was always with the permission of the family and the primary doctor. I turned the life-sustaining equipment off many times.
I well remember one night at about 2 am, we were sustaining a patient with some newly built equipment. The family allowed us to do our testing, knowing full well that the time was up and this equipment had no chance of saving the patient. We had permission to use the loved one for our testing because we had gained the respect of the family.
The head doctor announced, “Let’s go home.” and that was it. I turned off the equipment, and we stood in silent respect as the body went through the typical throes of death.
We brought the family in, and they paid their last respects. It was interesting to see the immediate grief and, shortly after, the relief of knowing that the loved one was no longer suffering. The family had known for some time what the outcome was going to be. The healing started in an hour or two.
About a year later, I was no longer working at the Cleveland Clinic. In the news came a shocking headline about a lawsuit against some medical facility for stopping life-sustaining procedures. I identified totally with the situation, as I had been there several times. I have total confidence that the medical team was operating in the best interests of the patient and family.
One family member just wasn’t able to accept the decision and filed a suit. Over the next few years, this issue was in the news often. Laws and procedures got passed to halt life. Everything became far more complicated than was necessary.
My previous actions became criminalized across the country. In a sense, I had been a serial murderer.
I never lost a second of sleep over this. I was just sorry that one person could be so unable to accept life and death that the whole medical industry was affected.
What I learned is that I might find myself in a situation that isn’t to my liking. I could decide that I no longer wished to live. I could commit suicide. Over 50 years later, the right to die is still a huge issue.
Updated 30 March 2023