Tag / medical futility
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![Banner header for our November 9 Bioethics Bulletin e-newsletter.]()
November 9 2023 Email Newsletter
Learn about the three definitions of medical futility and how to balance them, having a advance care planning discussion with your family during the Thanksgiving holiday and more in the Center for Practical Bioethics’ November 9, 2023 monthly email newsletter.
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![People running on a raised track to represent futility.]()
Three Definitions of Medical Futility And How to Balance Them
As modern medicine continues to push forward, it will continue to create scenarios that challenge our presupposed notions of right and wrong. New technologies and advancements in medicine will raise questions regarding the ethical permissibility of continuing to do “everything” versus the risks of holding back.
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![An image of a heart with two handles cradling it.]()
End of Life: Treatment Redirection
What is the role of treatment direction in end-of-life care?
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Case Study – “If you prick me, do I not bleed?”
Elizabeth is over 100 years old, with little cognitive decline. Her blood-thinning medication requires monthly blood draws, which are painful and distressing to Elizabeth. Is continuing the monthly blood draws the right thing to do?
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Case Study – Casey’s Last Inning
How do healthcare providers clearly state what they believe is the right and good and wise action that ought to be taken for the patient?
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Case Study – Baby K
Do physicians have an obligation to treat in a situation in which they believe treatment is utterly pointless?
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Case Study – A Family Divided
A forty-five-year-old man with a three-year history of cardiovascular disease has entered the hospital with a stroke that has paralyzed his right side and caused him to aspirate food of any consistency. His mental status is clouded and there is disagreement as to whether he has decisional capacity.
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The Courts and Medical Futility
Thaddeus Pope, director of the Health Law Institute and an Associate Professor of Law at Hamline University School of Law in Saint Paul, Minnesota, co-authored an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association entitled “The Courts, Futility and the Ends of Medicine.”
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Medical Futility: Wrong Medicine?
Lawrence Schneiderman, professor emeritus at the University of California at San Diego and co-author of a new book, Wrong Medicine – Doctors, Patients and Futile Treatment, discusses new approaches to the concept of medical futility.
