It probably should not be surprising, in this time of soaring medical costs and proliferating technology, that an intense debate has arisen over the concept of medical futility. Should doctors be doing all the things they are doing? In particular, should they be attempting treatments that have little likelihood of achieving the goals of medicine? What are the goals of medicine? Can we agree whe...

Technology has provided means to sustain life and provide care regardless of whether the treatment is appropriate and compassionate given the condition of the patient. This study presents two case histories, compiled from historical patient charts, staff notes and observations, that illustrate the variety of ethical issues involved and the role culture plays in the decision making process relat...

Demands by Patients or their Families for treatment thought to be inappropriate by health care providers constitute an important set of moral problems in clinical practice. A variety of approaches to such cases have been described in the literature, including medical futility, standard of care and negotiation. Medical futility fails because it confounds morally distinct cases: demand for an ine...

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) is a life-saving intervention in emergency medical care practiced globally for the last more than seven decades. It cannot be a solution to prevent every death and there are risks associated with this intervention. This article focuses on the ethical dilemmas related to the decisions of medical futility in cardiopulmonary resuscitation particularly in emergen...

The term medical futility is frequently used when discussing complex clinical scenarios and throughout the medical, legal, and ethics literature. However, we propose that health care professionals and others often use this term inaccurately and imprecisely, without fully appreciating the powerful, often visceral, response that the term can evoke. This article introduces and answers 10 common qu...

Futile treatment in intensive care patients is a hot topic around the world and a matter of intense debate and controversy. The consequences of such treatments are three-fold: the prolongation of patient’s suffering without long-term benefits, missed opportunities for other patients and high cost-benefit ratio in terms of resource allocation. By the same time a lot of controversies arise. Who s...

The irreversible cessation of life may be diffi cult to determine with complete confi dence, particularly in the austere environment of out-of-hospital emergency care. As a result, resuscitation efforts are often initiated and continued by EMS providers, even in circumstances that are likely to be medically futile. In cases of nontraumatic cardiac arrest, few unassailable criteria exist for det...