Dr. Geoffrey Manley, a neurosurgeon at the University of California in San Francisco, wants the medical establishment to change the way he treats brain damage. His work is partly motivated by what happened to a police officer whom he treated in 2002, just after completing his medical training.
Man arrived in unconscious emergencies, in a coma. He had been in a terrible car accident while pursuing a criminal.
Two days later, Dr. Manley’s mentor said it was time to tell the man’s family that there was no hope. His support for life should be withdrawn. He should be allowed to die.
Dr. Manley has resisted. The patient’s oxygen levels were encouraging. Seven days later, the policeman was still in a coma. Dr. Manley’s mentor has grown him again to speak to the family of the withdrawal of support for life. Again, Dr. Manley has resisted.
Ten days after the accident, the policeman started getting out of his coma. Three years later, he was back to work and was appointed San Francisco police officer of the month. In 2010, he was a police officer of the year
“This affair, and another like that,” said Dr. Manley, “changed my practice.”
But few has changed traumatic brain lesions in the world since Dr. Manley’s patient woke up. The evaluations of who will recover and how much patients are seriously injured are almost the same, which means that the patients said that they “just” a concussion, who then find it difficult to take care of recurring symptoms such as memory failures or headache. And this results in certain patients in the position of these police officers, who withdrew from their support for life when they could have recovered.
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