Limits of End-of-Life Prognostication

This month's The Hospitalist includes a basic review of some of the limits to end-of-life prognostication.  Among other things, the article includes a table summarizing several helpful end-of-life prediction tools.  But as critical care medicine superstar Randy Curtis puts it, "Predictions really apply to groups of people, not individuals. . . .  Physicians can't possibly know whether someone will fall into the 95% of patients who die or the 5% of patients who beat the odds."