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Dead on arrivalDead on arrival or DOA is a term used to indicate that a patient was found to be dead upon the arrival of professional medical assistance, often in the form of first responders such as emergency medical technicians, paramedics, or police. In some jurisdictions, first responders must first consult with an online physician before officially pronouncing a patient deceased, but once cardiopulmonary resuscitation is initiated, it must be continued until a physician can pronounce the patient dead. Additional recommended knowledgeDOA is also frequently used as slang to indicate that a new item was received broken, or that an idea or concept has no chance. Medical DOAWhen presented with a pulseless patient, medical professionals are required to perform CPR unless specific conditions are met which allow them to pronounce the patient as deceased:
(Note that the above list may not be a comprehensive picture of medical practice in all jurisdictions or conditions. For example, it may not represent the standard of care for patients with terminal diseases such as advanced cancer. In addition, jurisdictions such as Texas permit withdrawal of medical care from indigent patients who are deemed unlikely to recover.)
Regardless of the patient, pronouncement of death must always be made with absolute certainty and only after it has been determined that the patient is not a candidate for resuscitation. This type of decision is rather sensitive, and can be difficult to make. Legal definitions of death vary from place to place, for example irreversible brain death, prolonged clinical death, etc. Popular usageColloquially, anything which is received in a non-operational (broken) state can be called DOA or dead on arrival. If a new product, such as a computer, arrives "DOA" then it is likely that the recipient will call the supplier to get a Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA), a transaction that acknowledges that (apparently defective) goods will be returned to the supplier for refund, replacement or credit. Sometimes it is difficult to actually detect a defective or DOA product. With computers, for instance, it might require a boot image to be installed and run through a test suite to detect any failed parts. When, as with computers, product complexity is high and diagnostics are involved, the medical metaphor is perhaps appropriate, as complex diagnostics might be required to determine if the product "is really dead".
ReferencesMichael F. O'Keefe [et. al]. Brady Emergency Care, (8th ed.). Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: 1998; p.818. |
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Dead_on_arrival". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia. |