X-Message-Number: 28340
From: 
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 00:32:29 EDT
Subject: re: medical professionals

Reply to:  
>Message #28332
>Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2006 09:31:54 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Charles Platt <>
>Subject: medical professionals
 
Charles wrote:

>Here in Florida, at Suspended Animation, we have eight
>paramedics/EMTs on-call; we have a fulltime employee who has
>been a long-time professional perfusionist; we have a
>cardiovascular surgeon on retainer; 

[other supporting details deleted by Steve]

>I don't believe there is any major problem preventing any
>cryonics organization (even a small one) from establishing
<links with the medical profession. 

Part of the problem has been our expectations.  Most of the people who have 
been deeply involved in cryonics have made it a major part of their lives.  
They were "true believers", you might say.   Cryonics was pretty much run by 

dedicated volunteers until the past half dozen years, and I count even Alcor's 
low 
paid employees before that as being essentially volunteers.  We expect that 

employees and the people we hire to do the medical work will be as dedicated as
we are.

Of course circumstances are rarely this way in the real world of employment, 
including in the medical field.  Doctors, nurses, and emergency personnel can 
change hospitals, open up a private practice, do consulting or government 

work, join the military, etc. and they do so with some frequency.  I am curious
how often Charles has found it necessary to replace one professional with 

another, one hospital or emergency contact with another.  How long have his 
current 
group of cooperating medical personnel been working with Suspended Animation?

There is nothing *wrong* about this.  Frequent turnover is a part of the work 
life of America.  But in my experience Alcor leaders have not taken this into 
account.  We have worked hard to get one medically-trained person in and then 
he or she looses interest, or needs to get back to well-paid medical work.  
Since we have just hired a person based on his seeming interest, we are 

disappointed.  We may try to find another person with a similar level of 
interest, or 
we may just give up looking for a while.

This is not what hospitals do.  They create a *position* like "Hospital 

Administrator," "Chief of Surgery," or "Director of Research", and then they 
look 

for qualified people to fill it.  If that person later quits, the *position* is
still there and still needs filling; so a search is begun right away.  
Turnover is expected and planned for.  

Cryonics organizations, current or future, probably need to create medical 
positions, so there would be a constant emphasis on the medical part of the 
cryogenic rescue, and a standard way of handling the turnover.

My article was designed to get people talking about the decisions that Alcor 
and other organizations have made in the past and will make in the future.    
I don't have enough ideas about this myself, and I wanted to get other people 
to come up with ideas.

Steve Bridge


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