Allied Muslim Healthcare Professional Perspectives on Death by Neurologic Criteria

A Framework for Revisiting Brain Death: Evaluating Awareness and Attitudes Toward the Neuroscientific and Ethical Debate Around the American Academy of Neurology Brain Death Criteria

“…While not universally accepted, 22,37,38 the notion of brain death, specifically the whole-brain concept of brain death given in the UDDA, 39 is found to be broadly accepted by the participants in this study. In fact, the question (#7) gauging belief in the whole-brain concept of death is the most agreed-to item on the questionnaire with the least amount of change after the educational intervention.…”

A scoping review of the perceptions of death in the context of organ donation and transplantation

“…11.8% of physicians classified correctly severely brain injured person as alive but were willing to donate organs. The corresponding figure for patients in vegetative state was 8% Lee et al 2018 [ 57 ] Relationship between attitudes to DCDD and palliative medication prescription among intensive care physicians 38% were concerned that DCD patients would receive inappropriate doses of palliative care medications Some thought prescribing high doses of palliative medications would be perceived as hastening death Lewis et al 2020 [ 60 ] Attitudes of American Muslim HCPs to BD and its relationship with religiosity 84% of Muslim Allied Health Professionals believe that a person declared brain dead according to the American Academy of Neurology guidelines is truly dead Lomero et al Spain 2015 [ 24 ] Attitude and knowledge regarding donation and transplantation of the medical and nursing staff at a community hospital in the province of Barcelona 69.1% agreed with the view that brain death is equivalent to death Marck et al Australia 2012 [ 30 ] A cross-sectional survey was conducted to assess Australian ED clinicians’ acceptance and knowledge regarding BD The majority (85.5%, n = 578) of respondents accepted BD, agreeing that “BD is a valid determination of death,” while 11% (n = 73) disagreed, and 4% (n = 25) replied “don’t know.” 37% of those who replied disagreed or don’t know said so due to “doubts on the scientific definition of BD” Marcum USA 2002 [ 14 ] The purpose of this study was to investigate operating room nurses' knowledge level of the organ transplant retrieval process and their attitudes toward organ donation 20% of operating room nurses disagreed with the definition of brain death Mathur et al USA 2008 [ 42 ] Perception, level of knowledge, and understanding of DCDD and the effect of an educational intervention Good support (82%) for giving medications such as heparin to improve the chances of successful donation after cardiac death. 37% were neutral and 14% disagreed that 5 min of unresponsiveness, apnoea and asystole are sufficient to pronounce death after withdrawing life support therapy Mikla et al Poland 2015 [ 11 ] To analyze the knowledge and acceptance of the brain death (BD) concept among nursing students (n = 369) knew the concept of BD and considered it to mean a person’s death.…”

End-of-Life Care, Dying and Death in the Islamic Moral Tradition

“…For example, a national survey of Muslim physicians in the United States reported that nearly half did not consider brain-death to be death proper (Popal, Hall and Padela 2021). A smaller study of Muslim healthcare professionals, including chaplains, reported that half of participants felt that families should be given choice over whether brain-dead examinations are performed given the moral significance and ethical conundrums associated with the diagnosis (Lewis, Kitamura and Padela 2020). Muslim healthcare providers unease with brain-death occurs at both the conceptual and practical levels, and they use religious and biomedical sources in their critical arguments.…”

“…A cursory examination of empirical studies of Muslim patients, families, clinicians, and Muslim/Islamic critiques of "brain-death"1 attests to these phenomena. Muslims by and large are disquieted by brain-death and conflicted over ethical duties in end-of-life healthcare (Duivenbode, Hall and Padela 2019;Khalid et al 2013;Rady and Verheijde 2013;Bedir and Aksoy 2011;Arbour, AlGhamdi and Peters 2012;Farah and Al-Kurdi 2006;Khan 2009;Miller, Ziad-Miller and Elamin 2014;Padela and Basser 2012;Rady and Verheijde 2015;Rady and Verheijde 2016;Sarhill et al 2001;Sheikh 1998;Ahaddour, Branden and Broeckaert 2018;Khater 2005;Mohiuddin et al 2020;Ahaddour, Broeckaert and Branden 2019;Borhani, Hosseini and Abbaszadeh 2014;Lewis, Kitamura and Padela 2020;Popal, Hall and Padela 2022). Consequently, I hold that ethical evaluation may be better undertaken when both religious and secular scholars separate the inquiries related to the ontological reality of death from the ethical evaluation of its social implications.2 Holding human death to be a social construct facilitates such 1 I have placed the term brain death in quotations to highlight that the term is a misnomer and controversial.…”