4 ms·

What is "the code" in this context? The article masterfully reveals details slowly over time, but I don't want to lean on my own understanding of what that mean

What is "the code" in this context? The article masterfully reveals details slowly over time, but I don't want to lean on my own understanding of what that means.

panarky 8y ago
Doctors often use the term as slang for a cardiopulmonary arrest happening to a patient in a hospital or clinic, requiring a team of providers (sometimes called a code team) to rush to the specific location and begin immediate resuscitative efforts. https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/code-blue-code-black-what-does-code-mean https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/code-blue-code-black-wha...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
oralty 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_emergency_codes#Code_Blue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_emergency_codes#Code_... Code blue is not literally used everywhere... many places in the US use a number these days like 99 for "Blue" and then other memorable two digit numbers for more specific, less emergent needs like respiratory support or rapid response. Same thing.
- saalweachter 8y ago
  I feel like there's an inherent drift in the slang because part of its job is to not freak out bystanders, but once everyone knows what it means, you need to pivot to new slang.
  - coldacid 8y ago
    Rather than slang, it's more appropriate to call it argot[1]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argot
  - tellak 8y ago
    Technically it’s not slang (I took issue with that webmd calling it slang.. because it isn’t informal just nonstandardizd), it’s jargon. Because although different institutions do it differently, all this stuff is formalized pretty clearly. There is both the PA codes, ie anything from fire (unsurprisingly often code red), active shooter, to rapid response (person still has a pulse but ain’t feeling so hot)... to full on code blue.. but most places I work these are “quick” numbers like 66 or 88. I don’t think freaking out bystanders is a consideration.. since the non medical codes are often posted prominently in conspicuous locations, and the medical ones.. I mean who cares. But in most hospitals if you look near a nurse station you’ll find them not hidden. But who gets freaked out by a trauma alert or a code blue at of all places a hospital? there’s no saving those types. Having worked in a number of places it is more about expediency and scale. Code Blue was fine in the 1960s.. it was basically a tack on to other colors and it’s not too confusing. Now fast forward and there are different types of teams you want to call... respiratory, rapid response, ACLS, police, psych.. colors don’t scale well for this unless you want to go off of roygbiv.. and then you’ve lost. Edit: there have been efforts to standardize. In the US sometimes you get consistency in a region.
lukeplato 8y ago
>"I wanted to tell him that if we had done everything we could she would have gone to the palliative unit or home on hospice." I'm confused by this part. It almost implies that the code also involved intentionally not saving her
- thefifthsetpin 8y ago
  They did all that they could to save her from death, but in the author's opinion that's not what they should have been saving her from. As an example, they intentionally didn't save her from the agony of receiving CPR.
  - metildaa 8y ago
    CPR is brutal, both for the person receiving it and the person providing it. You crack the person's ribs and end up mushifying their chest if you persist in doing CPR too long. The other thing is without an AED (a defibrillator) the success rate of CPR is quite low, one physician I know equated it to buying time for the brain, as he had never seen CPR alone bring someone back.
    - licebmi__at__ 8y ago
      As far as I know (my wife is an emergency physician), despite what the name suggest, CPR is not really for "bringing back". Is a technique to keep the blood flowing so the brain doesn't suffer damage until other techniques are applied. Also, as she explained to me, the defibrillator is only used on certain kind of arrests, it can actually make things worse on others.
      - JshWright 8y ago
        CPR circulates blood to the oxygen and brain, keeping it going long enough for the heart to (maybe) be restarted. For the first few minutes after someone's heart stops beating, it probably hasn't actually stopped, it is just beating in a chaotic way that isn't actually moving any blood (this is known as "ventricular fibrillation, hence the "defibrillator"). The electrical discharge of the defibrillator is like someone standing up in a loud room and blowing an air horn. It shuts everyone up for a second, and hopefully the heart's normal "pacemaker" can take back over. There are some medications that can be given to "strengthen" that pacemaker, and to make the rest of the heart a bit less "twitchy" (and therefore less likely to go back into a lethal arrhythmia). There is a related arrhythmia known as ventricular tachycardia where the heart is beating too quickly to move any blood (and the beating is being triggered by random cells in the heart, not be the heart's intrinsic pacemaker). If someone is unresponsive and doesn't appear to be breathing, high quality CPR and early defibrillation are what will help them. If you have an AED, put it on them and follow the prompts it gives. And AED will not do anything that would make the patient's condition worse (to hurt someone with a defibrillator, you need to be using a manually controlled one).
wl 8y ago
"The code" is the attempt to keep the person alive. "Coding" is used as a verb either for performing "the code" or to describe a person dying.
- Grustaf 8y ago
  Thanks, that makes more sense than the other answers. Strange to use a term like that in an article that is presumably for mass consumption.
  - epanchin 8y ago
    Docility is a social network for psyicians, hardly a strange place to use medical terms.
    - Grustaf 8y ago
      OK then it makes more sense. Still, if they just rephrase the references to “code” anyone will be able to read it, but perhaps that doesn’t matter.

What is "the code" in this context? The article masterfully reveals details slowly over time, but I don't want to lean on my own understanding of what that means.

panarky 8y ago

Doctors often use the term as slang for a cardiopulmonary arrest happening to a patient in a hospital or clinic, requiring a team of providers (sometimes called a code team) to rush to the specific location and begin immediate resuscitative efforts. https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/code-blue-code-black-what-does-code-mean https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/code-blue-code-black-wha...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

oralty 8y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_emergency_codes#Code_Blue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_emergency_codes#Code_... Code blue is not literally used everywhere... many places in the US use a number these days like 99 for "Blue" and then other memorable two digit numbers for more specific, less emergent needs like respiratory support or rapid response. Same thing.

saalweachter 8y ago
I feel like there's an inherent drift in the slang because part of its job is to not freak out bystanders, but once everyone knows what it means, you need to pivot to new slang.
- coldacid 8y ago
  Rather than slang, it's more appropriate to call it argot[1]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argot
- tellak 8y ago
  Technically it’s not slang (I took issue with that webmd calling it slang.. because it isn’t informal just nonstandardizd), it’s jargon. Because although different institutions do it differently, all this stuff is formalized pretty clearly. There is both the PA codes, ie anything from fire (unsurprisingly often code red), active shooter, to rapid response (person still has a pulse but ain’t feeling so hot)... to full on code blue.. but most places I work these are “quick” numbers like 66 or 88. I don’t think freaking out bystanders is a consideration.. since the non medical codes are often posted prominently in conspicuous locations, and the medical ones.. I mean who cares. But in most hospitals if you look near a nurse station you’ll find them not hidden. But who gets freaked out by a trauma alert or a code blue at of all places a hospital? there’s no saving those types. Having worked in a number of places it is more about expediency and scale. Code Blue was fine in the 1960s.. it was basically a tack on to other colors and it’s not too confusing. Now fast forward and there are different types of teams you want to call... respiratory, rapid response, ACLS, police, psych.. colors don’t scale well for this unless you want to go off of roygbiv.. and then you’ve lost. Edit: there have been efforts to standardize. In the US sometimes you get consistency in a region.

lukeplato 8y ago

>"I wanted to tell him that if we had done everything we could she would have gone to the palliative unit or home on hospice." I'm confused by this part. It almost implies that the code also involved intentionally not saving her

thefifthsetpin 8y ago
They did all that they could to save her from death, but in the author's opinion that's not what they should have been saving her from. As an example, they intentionally didn't save her from the agony of receiving CPR.
- metildaa 8y ago
  CPR is brutal, both for the person receiving it and the person providing it. You crack the person's ribs and end up mushifying their chest if you persist in doing CPR too long. The other thing is without an AED (a defibrillator) the success rate of CPR is quite low, one physician I know equated it to buying time for the brain, as he had never seen CPR alone bring someone back.
  - licebmi__at__ 8y ago
    As far as I know (my wife is an emergency physician), despite what the name suggest, CPR is not really for "bringing back". Is a technique to keep the blood flowing so the brain doesn't suffer damage until other techniques are applied. Also, as she explained to me, the defibrillator is only used on certain kind of arrests, it can actually make things worse on others.
    - JshWright 8y ago
      CPR circulates blood to the oxygen and brain, keeping it going long enough for the heart to (maybe) be restarted. For the first few minutes after someone's heart stops beating, it probably hasn't actually stopped, it is just beating in a chaotic way that isn't actually moving any blood (this is known as "ventricular fibrillation, hence the "defibrillator"). The electrical discharge of the defibrillator is like someone standing up in a loud room and blowing an air horn. It shuts everyone up for a second, and hopefully the heart's normal "pacemaker" can take back over. There are some medications that can be given to "strengthen" that pacemaker, and to make the rest of the heart a bit less "twitchy" (and therefore less likely to go back into a lethal arrhythmia). There is a related arrhythmia known as ventricular tachycardia where the heart is beating too quickly to move any blood (and the beating is being triggered by random cells in the heart, not be the heart's intrinsic pacemaker). If someone is unresponsive and doesn't appear to be breathing, high quality CPR and early defibrillation are what will help them. If you have an AED, put it on them and follow the prompts it gives. And AED will not do anything that would make the patient's condition worse (to hurt someone with a defibrillator, you need to be using a manually controlled one).

wl 8y ago

"The code" is the attempt to keep the person alive. "Coding" is used as a verb either for performing "the code" or to describe a person dying.

Grustaf 8y ago
Thanks, that makes more sense than the other answers. Strange to use a term like that in an article that is presumably for mass consumption.
- epanchin 8y ago
  Docility is a social network for psyicians, hardly a strange place to use medical terms.
  - Grustaf 8y ago
    OK then it makes more sense. Still, if they just rephrase the references to “code” anyone will be able to read it, but perhaps that doesn’t matter.