The Slow Code

To the Editor: We would like to take issue with the call for the demise of the slow code (Feb. 12 issue). 1 Decisions concerning the intensity, duration, and appropriateness of the procedures performed during a code are made all the time. When the family requests that “everything be done” for a dying patient, it is the physician's duty to provide the family with the feeling and knowledge that indeed everything appropriate was done. The slow code should not be seen as an attempt to cheat the patient, or more frequently his or her family, but rather as a way of . . .