The Last Beat: Contemporary Ethical Controversies Surrounding Determination of Cardiopulmonary Death

Part one of this series tracked the evolution of the death examination, noting its stability over the last century despite changing diagnostic and therapeutic technologies and social contexts. In part two, we discuss the practical and ethical debates surrounding the exact timing of death. Although the irreversible cessation of cardiopulmonary systems remains the most common criteria used for the determination of death, identification of the moment of irreversibility is imprecise. In most cases, this imprecision is not problematic, but, when the cessation of circulation is used to identify the time of organ procurement for transplantation, it becomes critical. The phenomenon of autoresuscitation highlights these issues because patients who meet all the criteria for circulatory death (sometimes for periods of observation well beyond the norm) apparently return to life. Were these patients resurrected (like Lazarus) or did we simply not wait long enough?