How Much Resuscitation Is Enough Resuscitation?

One of the problems facing all of us when we perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation on children is deciding when enough is enough, and when it is perhaps too much. We want to give any child experiencing a sudden, unexpected catastrophe with cardiopulmonary arrest the fullest benefit of our skills and techniques, but if we persist too long, we risk resuscitating the heart but not the brain and creating a fate worse than death: the neurologically devastated or persistently vegetative state. I am as guilty as others of losing track of time and have found myself trying to resuscitate a patient for more than an hour.