The revolutionary criterion of brain death
Report Roman correspondence
Of Alfredo De Matteo
Historically, the doctor was called upon to certify the patient's death with an official document, that is, to officially testify to an event that has already occurred. In recent decades, however, he has changed his role: from a simple ascertainer of an objective and easily verifiable event to a true arbiter of people's lives and deaths.
Indeed, with the introduction of the criterion of brain death, the aim was not only to fix the exact moment of death but also to establish it through the use of sophisticated diagnostic tools. In other words, nowadays they are the only professionals who can evaluate when a patient is dead or not. Mass media communication has the task of incorporating the new criterion of death and presenting it uncritically to the general public as an established fact. Read More