Withholding life prolonging treatment, and self deception

Withholding life prolonging treatment, and self deception.

OBJECTIVES To compare non-treatment decision making by general practitioners and geriatricians in response to vignettes. To see whether the doctors' decisions were informed by ethical or legal reasoning. DESIGN Qualitative study in which consultant geriatricians and general practitioners (GPs) randomly selected from a list of local practitioners were interviewed. The doctors were asked whethe...

Towards guidelines for withholding and withdrawal of life prolonging treatment in neonatal medicine.

Despite being a focus of public debate for over 20 years, neonatal medicine continues to produce acute ethical dilemmas.' During this period great advances in treatment have made it possible to save many more infants. Sometimes, however, serious harm can result from prolonging the lives of some who are severely damaged, a potentially traumatic experience for all involved in their care. Decision...

Considerations regarding withholding/withdrawing life-sustaining treatment.

Withholding and withdrawing of life sustaining treatment in the newborn.

The rapid progress of medical technology has resulted in more opportunities to maintain the life of infants in serious and potentially life threatening situations. Whether to treat such infants is a common dilemma. The burden of these difficult decisions rests almost equally on distraught parents and relatives and on the professional staff of neonatal units. Sometimes, either parents or care te...

Withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment in children.

Modern medicine gives us the ability to prolong life even in situations where it may not be right to do so. This article discusses some of the complex ethical and legal issues surrounding withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment in children, including the concepts of futility, best interests and intolerability. We advocate the use of a structured framework to help guide decision-ma...