Thursday, March 1, 2012

Ze plane, ze plane!

No, no, no - not that Tattoo. This tattoo:

"Some medical tattoos are being used to take the place of bracelets that commonly list a person's allergies, chronic diseases or even end-of-life wishes."

The idea is that one could have, for example, "No CPR" permanently (and prominently) emblazoned on one's chest, because an EMT might overlook a bracelet, but couldn't help but see the tattoo.

The downside is that, so far, "[m]edical tattoos don't appear to carry much legal weight." As it turns out, neither do the bracelets. I spoke with a client (a FD bigwig) who told me that it's not really an issue: the bracelets are "descriptive" (i.e. "I'm diabetic" or "I'm allergic to penicillin") not "prescriptive" ("Do not resuscitate").

Now you know.

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