Where more than one physician shares such responsibility, any such physician may act as the attending physician for purposes of this protocol. The protocol provides that the patient in respiratory or cardiac distress will receive palliative, comfort care consistent with the scope of the EMT's training and certification, but no resuscitative measures. Any EMT certified pursuant to 105 CMR 170.000 et seq. An individual authorized by a health care proxy to make health care decisions on behalf of the principal, pursuant to M.G.L. c. Life-sustaining procedures shall not include any medical procedure or intervention considered necessary by the attending physician, EMS personnel, or the medical control physician to provide comfort care or to alleviate pain.
Comfort care that eases or relieves symptoms without correcting the underlying cause or disease.
Similarly, it is recognized that incompetent individuals have the same right to determine the course of their medical treatment as well as to refuse medical treatment. 201 and 105 CMR 171.000 et seq. A DNR order is an order, executed by a physician, issued according to the current standard of care. The standard for issuing the DNR order is neither defined nor changed by this protocol. This protocol does not prescribe an expiration date, but rather leaves the expiration date up to the physician.