Compassion Should Prompt Us to Forgo Prolonged and Costly Treatment

In the 1950s, McGill neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield developed the "Montreal Procedure," a surgical technique that uses local anesthetic to keep the patient conscious and responding to questions while the surgeon stimulates parts of the brain. By using this method, Penfield created functional maps of the cortex (surface) of the brain.



Later, in the 1960s, after he left McGill, Penfield published The Second Career.  There, he argued that "there are times when compassion should prompt us to forgo prolonged and costly treatment."