FRONTLINE examined the difficult and emotional decisions that families confront when their loved one is gravely ill, and the complicated reality of dying in an era of modern medicine. (Aired 2010)
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In this 2010 documentary, FRONTLINE gained access to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of one of New York’s biggest hospitals. The filmmakers found doctors and nurses struggling to guide families through a maze of end-of-life choices that had become available: whether to pull feeding and breathing tubes, when to perform expensive surgeries and therapies and when to call for hospice. The documentary presented intimate portraits of patients grappling with the trade-offs of modern medicine and the prospect of dying.
Explore additional reporting on “Facing Death” on our website:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/facing-death/
#Documentary #ICU
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FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and airs nationwide on PBS.
Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; Park Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen.
CHAPTERS:
Prologue – 00:00
Life and Death Decisions in an Intensive Care Unit – 1:13
Extending Life or Prolonging Death? A Family Decides on Life Support – 11:01
The Uncertainty of Disease Progression v. Medical Innovation – 16:51
Talking About End-of-Life Care and Options – 32:37
The Trade-Offs of Advances in Medicine- 47:33
Credits – 51:38
Yes 👍🏼
Fuck hospitals. They do NOTHING. This is profit for them to keep everybody sick. This pandemic of Cancer IS NOT NORMAL. The statistics are all wrong. This is a malicious cash grab. Burn in hell all of you 'health care workers'. Its bullshit.
There is a difference in living and existing. Everyone should have a DNR. I have one on file.
There is no reason to go on if there is no cure or hope. let them pass with dignity. The family who had there loved on on life support should be ashamed of themselves. they kept her on the machines for them. Not for the love of their family member to let her pass on her own.
we don't know how to deal with death. medicine is such a mess. It's like they thrive on giving bad news and promoting mourning when they could embrace the end of life – celebrate it even. – it's really grotesque
This is so hard to watch. Unfortunately probably everybody that was in this video is probably in heaven now.😢
Im curious about robert bernadini? Did he survive? They never said
Fight with everything that's in you and if your loved one is the patient fight for them!
this documentary makes me feel emotions that cant be described with words
Good doctors
As an MD Sherley should be ashamed of herself for keeping Ms. Martha on a vent for so long! She 💯 knows better!! It’s cruelty for her own selfishness 💔 EVERYONE needs to have an advance directive once they are able to make the choice as an adult and update it as they age.
He need to enjoy his days
Do you have to give your life to the one who created it revelation?Chapter twenty 21 verse. 3 you have to let it go
Some time you have to stop
i mean i understand both sides of the fence here. from the doc's perspective, they have limited time and resources available and need to consider others. from the family's perspective, they certainly don't want their loved one to die. but the reality is that every book has a final page. people need to accept this. including the patient. i've been there myself. my dad had a cardiac arrest and was brought back and kept on life support for two weeks. he was basically a vegetable and we ended up letting him go. we should have let him go on the first day. when he eventually was taken off the ventilator, it was absolutely horrible with him gasping and writhing in pain until he eventually succumbed to death. after going through that, i made a commitment that would never happen again….to any of my family members or to myself. how have we gotten to this point to where we simply plug people into a machine to keep them artificially alive? it's a travesty.
The easiest way to communicate with someone who's in a coma, they can still hear you, if their heart is still beating. The lids are easier to control. It takes no energy, to move your eyelids, even if the lids are closed.
When my mother died of an abdominal aortic aneurysm in 1997, after two failed surgeries to repair it, I was 18. My family—including my two younger brothers, my grandmother, my Aunt Lori, and my Aunt and Uncle from Alaska—were all on the phone. We decided together that we loved her too much to let her spend the rest of her life on a ventilator in a nursing home. We just couldn’t put her through that or leave her like that. We didn’t want to go through it ourselves. We wanted her to die with dignity, and a priest came in to read her last rites as I cried, held by a nun. Just to remind me that God hadn’t left me. Even now, recalling that moment brings back those feelings, and I understand fully—100%, just as many of you do—that, besides the overwhelming financial and emotional costs, there's also a profound sense of loss. It’s better to let them go if they're not going to get better. When my time comes many years from now, I hope my family and friends will do the same for me.
8:24 that poor lady, so much pain in her voice so much pain😔
I CANT BELIEVE THEY HAVE LEFT THAT WOMAN ON A VENT FOR A YEAR
They give them enough dope to MAKE SURE that she WILL NOT BREATHE on her own ! Its about this folks!!!—->$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
The HOSPITALS are causing the deaths with "TOOOOOO HEAVY SEDATION".
They killed my younger sister, in Albany, NY…she went to the hospital for an infected toe, the next thing, shes on a ventilator and they're telling us shes brain dead, and we have to:
"make a decision".
I'm 66 now and decided years ago that in the inevitable event of a life threatening health crisis, I will opt out of any invasive measures other than pallative care. I'd rather have a few good months over extending my life in a miserable and compromised state. Death is the natural outcome of life and quality over quantity is where it's at for this gal.
It's heartwrenching to see your loved one in such a hopeless vulnerable condition.
Very bad to vote to end someones life
Heavy sedation is incapacitating is weakening someone even worse
Live well and die well bless them