Reversing Death:
The Miracle of Modern Medicine
Moderated by Steve Paulson
Executive Producer, To the Best of Our Knowledge
Featuring:
Lance Becker, MD
Professor of Emergency Medicine
Director, Center for Resuscitation Science, The University of Pennsylvania
Stephan A. Mayer, MD, FCCM
Professor of Neurology and Neurological Surgery, Columbia University
Director, Neurological Intensive Care Unit, Columbia University Medical Center
Sam Parnia, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Critical Care Medicine
Director of Resuscitation Research, State University of New York
Author, Erasing Death

Recent breakthroughs in emergency medicine have enabled modern science to halt and even reverse death. At the same time, these advances have inadvertently led science into a domain that has traditionally been relegated to theology and philosophy. The so-called “grey areas” between the time of death and the time of resuscitation—ranging from several minutes up to several hours—have raised intriguing questions about brain activity and consciousness during this period that have compelled us to re-examine our conception of death.
What does the patient feel and experience during the resuscitation process? Are we dealing with the person as a whole, or with just the physical body? Emergency medicine experts Lance Becker and Sam Parnia and neurosurgeon Stephan Mayer discuss key discoveries and emerging technologies in resuscitation science that are helping to bring back those on the brink of death, and the difficult questions and ethical dilemmas they sometimes confront during medical crises.
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