![survey remover ahc survey remover ahc](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/dd1cc8ee-f209-4041-96a2-e480dbbd5adc/jctb6185-fig-0003-m.jpg)
![survey remover ahc survey remover ahc](https://www.actionhepatitiscanada.ca/uploads/8/3/3/9/83398604/meeting-graphic_orig.png)
Only about one-third of physicians were aware that neither presence of a terminal illness or an underlying heart rhythm influences the legality of pacemaker deactivation. Compared to deactivation of an ICD, physicians more often characterized deactivation of a PM in a pacemaker-dependent patient as physician-assisted suicide (19% vs.
SURVEY REMOVER AHC PROFESSIONAL
Among the responders who provided professional training data, nearly all were trained as internists (98%), and most practiced at the level of clinical attending. The study, commissioned in early 2010 with support from the Harvard Catalyst program, explored the experience, legal knowledge, and ethical views of 185 respondents at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an academic tertiary center in Boston, Mass. The survey, published in the November edition of HeartRhythm, the official journal of the Heart Rhythm Society, uncovers a need for more education regarding the legal and ethical parameters guiding cessation of PM and ICD therapy. Similarly, physicians were almost twice as likely to have been involved in withdrawal of therapies such as mechanical ventilation and hemodialysis compared with cardiac devices.
![survey remover ahc survey remover ahc](https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/685937/fmicb-12-685937-HTML/image_m/fmicb-12-685937-g001.jpg)
Docs not comfortable removing cardiac devicesĪccording to a new survey, physicians were significantly less comfortable discussing withdrawal of pacemaker (PM) and implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapy compared with other life-sustaining therapies, with about one-half stating that they were not comfortable having these conversations with patients, according to a new study published in HeartRhythm, a news release from the Heart Rhythm Society.