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  • Emergency medicine and futile care: Taking the road less travelled

    Author(s)
    O'Connor, Alan
    Winch, Sarah
    Lukin, William
    Parker, Malcolm
    Griffith University Author(s)
    O'Connor, Alan
    Year published
    2011
    Metadata
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    Abstract
    Debate around medical futility has produced a vast literature that continues to grow. Largely absent from the broader literature is the role of emergency medicine in either starting measures that prove to be futile, withholding treatment or starting the end of life communication process with patients and families. In this discussion we review the status of the futility debate in general, identify some of the perceived barriers in managing futile care in the ED including the ethical and legal issues, and establish the contribution of emergency medicine in this important debate. We conclude that emergency physicians have the ...
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    Debate around medical futility has produced a vast literature that continues to grow. Largely absent from the broader literature is the role of emergency medicine in either starting measures that prove to be futile, withholding treatment or starting the end of life communication process with patients and families. In this discussion we review the status of the futility debate in general, identify some of the perceived barriers in managing futile care in the ED including the ethical and legal issues, and establish the contribution of emergency medicine in this important debate. We conclude that emergency physicians have the clinical ability and the legal and moral standing to resist providing futile treatment. In these situations they can take a different path that focuses on comfort care thereby initiating the process of the much sought after 'good death'.
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    Journal Title
    Emergency Medicine Australasia
    Volume
    23
    Issue
    5
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1742-6723.2011.01435.x
    Subject
    Public Health and Health Services not elsewhere classified
    Clinical Sciences
    Public Health and Health Services
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/45352
    Collection
    • Journal articles

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