Comment: Death is a reality that confronts us all at different times and in different ways. Death of a child, especially your own child, is an ever-present fear. Sadly, every day, somewhere in the world, parents will be confronted by the death of their child in an intensive care unit (ICU). Surrounded by the paraphernalia of high-tech medicine, those who work in the ICU must bring understanding to the family with both sympathy and empathy. Brain death does not seem like death in the same way as cardiac death, and that disconnection between what we know and what we feel is described here with exquisite pain by Ali’s mother.1
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- Westmead Hospital, Sydney, NSW.
Correspondence: jeremy_chapman@wsahs.nsw.gov.au
- 1. van Os JM. The hidden trauma of organ donation. Med J Aust 2009; 191: 612-613. <eMJA full text>
- 2. ADAPT: Australasian Donor Awareness Programme [website]. http://www.adapt.asn.au (accessed Nov 2009).
- 3. Australian Organ and Tissue Authority. Donate Life [website]. http://www.donatelife.gov.au (accessed Nov 2009).
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