X-Message-Number: 17515 Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 01:54:40 -0400 Subject: Re: What funeral directors lack From: In Message #17505, Mr. Paul Garfield wrote a very courteous and substantive letter. I'd like to respond -- respectfully -- to some of the points in it. Mr. Garfield wrote: >> In respectful response to Message #17494 there is at least one vitally important omission in the lengthy evaluation of funeral directors as compared to other cryonic technicians. Of supreme paramount importance it must be noted that a funeral director is not a "blood brother" fellow cryonicist.<< Actually, a funeral director may very well be a cryonicist. Why shouldn't he be? But that's a little beside the point. Mr. Garfield seems to be saying that a surgical practitioner needs to believe that his technical practices will work, and (I think) that he needs to be emotionally involved with the patient. In actual medicine that is not the case. Emotional doctors are discouraged and sometimes removed from practice. One needs -- no neurosuspension pun intended -- a cool head. Also, a doctor does not need to believe that his techniques will work in order to apply them effectively. In fact, in many cases, such as cancer, leukemia, AIDS, he's pretty sure they will not work. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't apply himself to the best of his ability, if he's a trained and licenced professional. Funeral directors are surgically-trained and state-licensed professionals. Their ability to emote is not one of CI's criteria for selecting them. >> A funeral director deals with bodies that are dead, gone, buried. << Er... I think you may have unintentionally misspoken here. CI does not accept bodies that have been buried, and I don't know that a lot of funeral directors deal with buried bodies either. They're already in the ground. There's not much call for funeral director service at that point. As to dealing with bodies that are 'gone' -- well, I don't think any funeral directors at all deal with bodies that aren't there, either. Dealing with dead bodies? Now on that score, funeral directors do have frequent and extensive contact, probably more so than formal medical doctors. I don't call that a minus, however. 'Experience,' rather. >>A cryonicist sees a person who will one day be a living, vibrant human being and, above all, a friend he knows and cherishes. That's the kind of person I want at my suspension.<< Well, again, there are people in cryonics -- not a few in Alcor, I might add -- that I know and cherish, and whom I believe will one day be living, vibrant human beings. (And I know a couple in the cryonics world that aren't all that vibrant right now, but who knows, maybe one day...) However, unlike a funeral director, I don't have any surgical training, and I couldn't suspend even the people I cherish for love nor money. All I could do at that point is get out of the way of less emotional professionals, and I hope that is what I would have the good sense to do. >> Also, at time of need it will be unknown whether the funeral personnel will be the skilled director himself or an untrained substitute who happens to be on duty.<< I'm afraid this is not the case. Under American law, a funeral director can't just grab some high school kid off the street and say, "Go! Enbalm!" Quite apart from the fact that the body in question may have communicable diseases, AIDs, etc., no 'untrained substitute' can perform legally funerary services. The law mandates legal certification and state review. Funeral directors do use assistants, but they are trained and certified individuals, just as senior doctors sometimes use junior doctors to assist in an operation. But this a bit beside the point, because CI only uses -- indeed, *can* only use -- funeral directors whom it has trained in its procedures. Those who aren't so trained -- how can I put this? -- don't know what they're doing and therefore can't do it. A fact would be extremely palpable once we received the patient. No 'untrained substitute' will ever be handling a CI member under the funeral director system. Sorry. >> As an Alcor member I am assured that Alcor technicians are always on duty. I know who they are. I know they care. I know they are totally dedicated to me and to all cryonicists.<< Well, to you, perhaps. And I have no doubt that Alcor personnel treat their members with all the expertise, skill, and concern they have, and I am certain that that is a lot. But -- to all cryonicists? Alcor is a very fine organization, to be sure. But the unfortunate fact is that if you are a cryonicist and a European, or an Asian, an Australian, an African, a South American, Alcor's total dedication may not mean much to you. If you are a cryonicist who is not insurable, or do not have $120,000, like James Swayze (http://www.davidpascal.com/swayze; donations gratefully accepted), again Alcor's (very sincere and genuine) dedication may be moot. I am also sorry to say that there has not been as much cooperation between Alcor and other organizations as one might wish, and I think this has been to the detriments of 'all cryonicists', as you put it. For instance, CI policy states that CI is willing to have members prepared upon death by other organizations if they so wish. We would be more than happy to have Alcor perform suspensions and vitrifications and deliver the patient to CI for subsequent long-term maintenance. It seems to me that both organizations -- not to mention the public -- would stand to profit by such an arrangement. We'd be happy to do it. Alcor? Nope. I don't mean to accuse Alcor of hard-heartedness. I know for a fact that many a heart at Alcor, and many a mind and spirit too, are as large and spacious as you could wish. No organization can do absolutely everything, and sometimes an organization has to make some hard decisions. I have no doubt that Alcor is doing everything it can for its own members, and I have no doubt that what it is doing is very good. But I have to say that I wish they would be a bit more open to, as you say, 'all cryonicists'. I sometimes think that Alcor inclines to think of cryonics as the natural preserve of upscale American Trekkies. Now that's OK! Upscale Trekkies are good folk too. But CI tends to envision cryonics as something almost like a human right. No human being should have to die, to die eternally, because of poverty. No human being should die because they're not located in the right place. CI wants to make cryonic suspension available to anyone who wants it. It can't, but it can try hard to reach out to as many people as possible. And, by God, it does try, and it tries damned hard, which is why I think so very much of it. It's for that reason we have certain CI policies like its deliberate radical lowering of prices almost to cost, and its determination to offer world-wide service, and, yes, its willingness to use unsexy, non-trendy, but skilled, certified, and socially acceptable funeral directors -- because it allows us to reach as many human beings we can. And if there's one band of human beings I sometimes wish we could reach, it's a few folks at Alcor. The fact is, things are changing, and I really think it's about time that the relationships between these two organizations changed a bit too. After all, something like one out of five cryonics members may be with Alcor, but something like four out of five are with CI, and we're growing a heck of a lot faster. This See-No-CI, Hear-No-CI, Speak-No-CI thing does seem to me to be getting a trifle old. I have always had the highest respect for many, many Alcor members and I have always believed that Alcor CI could work much better as cooperating friends than as separate islands. Perhaps Jerry Lemler, who's been praised for his 'inclusiveness' will bring a breath of fresh air to this state of affairs, too. I hope so. >> I know they are highly trained for their one specific job with expertise in that one specific area. << Well -- yes and no. To become a travelling team member, my understanding is that you go through about three eight-hour sessions over a three day period, once a year. No medical training, educational background, previous experience, etcetera, is needed. I don't doubt such people are very well trained in those three days. But funeral directors are trained in surgical and other techniques for two to four year periods, reviewed by state boards, licensed by the government, periodically reviewed, and practice removing blood and replacing it with preservative solutions week after week somtimes for decades. I don't really think that a comparison can be sustained. MInd you, I am *not* saying that travelling teams are *bad*. They *are* trained, they *have* performed well, and some members of travelling teams may have extensive experience and even medical backgrounds. But some -- indeed most -- do not. That's just how it is. Travelling teams are volunteers, and there are just not many crack M.D.'s out there volunteering for what is a very admirable but very thankless, tough, and ill-paying job. And -- to be frank -- even a medical background doesn't instantaneously translate into competent suspension ability. No medical school teaches its students how to cryopreserve or vitrify patients. No department of neurosurgery instructs you in severing heads from bodies for purposes of cryonic perfusion. One of the reasons that CI decided to use funeral directors is the simple fact that their job, in essence, consists of reaching patients quickly, removing blood, and replacing it with preservative fluids. That is not a cryonics perusion by any means, but it is *close*; it is a related technique, performed by individuals with extensive surgical training and constant experience and quick and legal access to recently deceased individuals. It is *reasonable* to suppose that they can, with some instruction, do a competent job, possibly even a more competent one than a doctor who may never have performed an analogous process, much less performed it hundreds of times. I am not saying that funeral directors are the ideal solution to the problem. Ideally, eventually, suspensions will be performed in hospitals by trained cryonicist doctors on patients brought to them by trained cryonicist ambulance attendants. But *right now* we don't have that option. We have travelling team members who are on the average not as well trained as funeral directors, and who are in most cases not in the area when the death occurs. The use of funeral directors is a *reasonable* and a *reasoned* alternative. That is all that I am saying. I am not faulting someone who selects a travelling team. Hell, CI *has* a travelling team! Some members want it, and if CI members want something, CI tries to give it to them. But we want people to have both options, because, frankly, there is substance in both options. You know, there is this completely silly 'one ramp, one protocol, one Fuhrer' attitude in some cryonics circles -- the notion that there is only *one* right way, only *one* correct approach, only *one* perfect path. That's simply nonsense. Cryonics is a field where ambiguity reigns, and where a multiplicity of approaches is inevitable. There is nothing wrong with that. Innovation and diversity could be as much a blessing here as it is in other fields, if we gave it a chance. New, differing, variant approaches would only benefit us. But to have that benefit we have to learn to be tolerant and to understand that there be something to both sides of an issue. The use of a travelling team is not wrong, and the use of a funeral director is not wrong. Both are solutions to a problem. Both have their pluses and minuses. What we need to do is recognize that there may be value in both approaches, and that people who adopt either may have sound reasons, and ought to be respected for their decision. But this, I'm sorry to say, is what we do not see. We see funeral directors systematically regarded as fumbling neanderthals, and travelling teams presented as beaming down from the Enterprise, tricorders in hand. It's a picture that just doesn't fit the facts. Both approaches have their merits; both approaches should be appreciated for their merits. >> I know Alcor technicians have had previous experience with many suspensions. I know a funeral director will probably have only one. I do not want to be a funeral directors first patient.<< Some Alcor technicians have indeed done many suspensions. And some Alcor technicians -- those fresh out of training, for instance -- have done none. Which will you get? It depends on the circumstances. You may get a highly experienced crack team. I hope you do. As for funeral directors, I believe our principal funeral director in the Michigan area, James Walsh, has been involved in well over twenty suspensions. Does that mean CI treatments will always be better than Alcor's? No. Circumstances determine how the actual situation will turn out. There is nothing that would give me more pleasure than to absolutely guarantee to you that CI will always and in every case do a better job for you than Alcor. I can't. Alcor can't guarantee that it'll always do a better job than CI. It's a matter of where you are, and how the cards fall. All I can reasonably say is that funeral directors likely have, on the average, more extensive surgical and anatomical training and experience, and will probably be closer at time of death. >> That's why I am an Alcor member. << Well, then, I have only one thing to say to you, Mr. Garfield: good for you! Alcor is a fine organization. They have a long and honorable history, fine personnel, a record of serious commitment, and, I am sure, provide excellent care for their members. And what members! Some of the most brilliant and interesting minds around. Drexler, Merkle, Minsky -- Jerry Leaf -- Mike Perry -- Natasha Vita-More! Please, Mr. Garfield, don't misunderstand me: I have some disagreements with Alcor policies, but it doesn't certain extend to Alcor members, or even to the organization as such, at all. I do think that a much stronger case than most people are aware of can be made for CI, but you have not at all made a mistake joining Alcor. It's a fine organization, and I'm sure they'll make every effort to give you the best care possible. The only real mistake you can make -- the only real mistake anyone reading this can make -- is not joining anyone. That is suicide. Anyone who joins any cryonics provider is making the right move, and doing the right thing, and I congratulate you and respect you for it. I wish more people followed your example. I think that in the long run, cryonics organizations stand together, and that what benefits any of us, benefits all of us. So believe me, if you manage to get your family and friends and half the population of North America into Alcor too, that'll be just fine with me. As I say, none of us have guarantees; but I shouldn't worry, Mr. Gartfield. You're in good hands. I think you'll make it to that 'vibrant' future of yours. I think we all will. Best wishes for a long life, David Pascal http://www.cryonics.org (P.S. And thank you for the substantive, and very courteous, tone of your post. Like I say: a breath of fresh air!) Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17515