When ventilator support is being withdrawn from a dying child, responsive titration of sedative medications by the ICU team can relieve suffering without anesthetizing the child completely or hastening death.
Physicians have an ethical responsibility to be functionally literate in health statistics and able to explain information such as a test’s positive predictive value to their patients.
Bioethicist Bruce Jennings examines the changing role of physicians in end-of-life care, from paternalistic decision maker to advisor-technician and half-way back.