Beyond Autonomy -- Physicians' Refusal to Use Life- Prolonging Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation

Abstract

Conclusions: If after the physician has listened to the concern of the family members and explored the possibilities with them -- including the transfer of the patient to a willing physician -- the family persists in its demands for continued life-prolonging treatment that the physician believes to be beyond well-established medical criteria, the physician ought not to feel obliged to provide it. The physician's response in such cases should be: "I am sorry, but we don't do that here." This is done not because the patient no longer has any value or because the physician lacks respect for the family's wishes. It is done because the obligation of physicians, as articulated in the Hippocratic Oath, is to act for the benefit of the patient according to their ability and judgment.