8 Questions Patients Forget to Ask Their Doctor

Medical futility conflicts are often due to patients and surrogates demanding more aggressive interventions than clinicians deem appropriate.  But far greater volumes of overly-aggressive end-of-life treatment is provided not because patients and surrogates want (or need) it, but because clinicians want to provide (and bill for) it.




Both in the end-of-life context and elsewhere in medicine, patients need to be empowered to protect themselves against growing cultural and economic influences that may undermine patient rights.  To this end, here are eight questions that patients forget to ask their doctor.