Patients and their families often value the avoidance of invasive or overly aggressive life-sustaining measures when they are at the end of life. However, many dying patients receive aggressive life-sustaining therapies, in part due to clinicians’ failures to elicit patients’ preferences and to provide recommendations.
Sources:
Canadian Critical Care Society Ethics Committee, Bandrauk N, Downar J, Paunovic B. Withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment: The Canadian Critical Care Society position paper. Can J Anaesth. 2018 Jan;65(1):105-122. PMID: 29150778
Downar J, et al. Nonbeneficial treatment Canada: definitions, causes, and potential solutions from the perspective of healthcare practitioners*. Crit Care Med. 2015 Feb;43(2):270-81. PMID: 25377017.
Myburgh J, et al. End-of-life care in the intensive care unit: Report from the Task Force of World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine. J Crit Care. 2016 Aug;34:125-30. PMID: 27288625.