Countdown

Blood pressure 120/87, heart rate 95, respiratory rate 22, O2 sat 94%. Blood pressure 95/70, heart rate 68, respiratory rate 16, O2 sat 81%. These words filled the silence of the operating room (OR). They started the moment Ms. Thompson was taken off life support in her nearby room in the intensive care unit (ICU) and continued until she was brought into the OR. This was not at all what I expected of my first experience with patient death. It had been a long few weeks for Ms. Thompson and her family, as they grappled with the difficult decision to withdraw life support. She fought for as long as she could, but her death would be one of great generosity: offering what she could to save a life as she lost her own. As a medical student, I knew what organ donation meant in a theoretical and distant sense: a patient dies and gives organs to others who need them. It seemed simple enough.