In his guest editorial, former Alcor President Steve Bridge talks about
why there aren’t more medical professionals involved in cryonics.
Isn’t it because they are taught in all their education that people who
are clinically dead are just that, dead? And that there is no sense
doing anything else for them? If that is what their mindset is,
isn’t asking them to participate in cryonics like asking them to
participate in the activities of morticians preparing bodies for
funerals? At least that’s how they would see it, right?
Steve Bridge Replies:
Yes, that is certainly part of the problem; but that is the part of the problem that we already understand. “Dead is Dead” has been the rigid misunderstanding of most people in all fields for centuries at least, in spite of frequent cases in contemporary medicine where the label of “dead” was misapplied. However, most of the medical professionals who DO understand this point still do not get involved in helping with cryopreservation procedures or research. We need to understand how to break through that next level of resistance.
Jennifer Chapman also comments:
Thank you for your comments. Cryonics does require a shift in the
perception of death. A person who has a heart attack and is “dead” in the
clinical sense but is revived using CPR or a defibrillator was not dead at
all. If medical professionals are willing to reconsider the standard
definition of death used today, they may also see cryonics patients as
potentially viable, only farther in the future.
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