BACKGROUND: Little is known about what role physicians take in the decision-making process about life support in intensive care units. OBJECTIVE: To determine how responsibility is balanced between physicians and surrogates ...

Advance directives have not fulfilled their promise of facilitating decisions about end-of-life care for incompetent patients. Many legal requirements and restrictions concerning advance directives are counterproductive. ...

As a result of profound worldwide demographic change, physicians will increasingly care for patients from cultural backgrounds other than their own. Differences in beliefs, values, and traditional health care practices ...

As patients near the end of life, their spiritual and religious concerns may be awakened or intensified. Many physicians, however, feel unskilled and uncomfortable discussing these concerns. This article suggests how ...

Background: Physicians in intensive care units have withdrawn life support in incapacitated patients who lack surrogate decision makers and advance directives, yet little is known about how often this occurs or under what ...