...Much of the resistance to the notion of futility, we believe, derives from the fear that it will serve as a masquerade for less defensible motivations. For example, will its acceptance revive discarded abuses of medical ...

In this paper, we examine in closer detail the ethical implications of medical futility. Section one introduces an illustrative case involving a clearly futile medical treatment. Section two outlines three contrasting positions ...

The paper explores the ethical and psychological issues that arise when family members request that "everything possible" be done for a particular patient. The paper first illustrates this phenomenon by reviewing the well ...

Six years ago, we proposed a patient benefit-centered definition of medical futility that included both quantitative and qualitative components. We distinguished between an effect of a treatment that is limited to some ...

Since physicians are powerful agents in the medical decision-making process and are the ones who ultimately control the treatments and procedures, we posed the following question: Are physicians' actions influenced by ...

Objective -- To determine whether brief general instructions in a typical proxy-instruction advance directive (California Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care [DPAHC]) provide interpretable information about patient ...

This article explores ethical decision making in the prehospital emergency setting with particular attention to emergency cardiac care. The first sections argue in support of current efforts to develop portable do-not-resuscitate ...

Should the nation provide expensive care and scarce organs to convicted felons? We distinguish between two fields of justice: Medical Justice and Societal Justice. Although there is general acceptance within the medical ...

Previous studies have documented the fallibility of attempts by surrogates and physicians to act in a substituted judgment capacity and predict end-of-life treatment decisions on behalf of patients. We previously reported ...