Medical Miracles and End-of-Life Treatment Conflict

Kate Scannell has another great Bay-Area op-ed titled "Grappling with the Miracles of Modern Medicine."  She describes a patient of hers who woke up after all had considered him dead.  She then juxtaposes this case with the new study in the Journal of Medical Ethics in which British researchers asked whether doctors -- against their professional judgment -- should be obligated to provide intensive medical care to terminally ill children when parents demanded it, based on their religious beliefs in divine intervention or miraculous recovery.



Scannell observes:  "Doctors care about this issue because it deeply matters how their judgments and actions affect the lives of vulnerable patients and families. When they feel coerced into delivering useless or harmful care, it can feel professionally corrupting and morally disturbing."



And echoing some of the points that Doug White and I made in our JAMA piece earlier this year, Scannell writes: "Talk about using the courts to settle disagreements about medical care seems to be gaining steam. In the U.S., we're witnessing resurgent interest in devising hospital "futility" or "nonbeneficial treatment" policies that delineate a mechanism by which final decision-making authority is granted to doctors or hospital designees -- usually without patient or public involvement. . . . courts can offer patients and doctors a mechanism that allows the facts of an intractable dispute to be aired in broad daylight, under insightful legal consideration. The adjudicated cases could propose rules for everyone to follow and help to minimize future conflicts."