Module 3 Flashcards
What happens when there is a scarce resource for ICU beds?
demand is greater than supply, and often, we have to ration the resource to allocate them fairly.
What is medical futility?
The purpose of this concept is to limit the right of patients to demand treatments, especially when those treatments would not help the patient’s condition
What is the thesis of Schneiderman et al chapter?
If a requested medical treatment or procedure is deemed to be futile, a health care professional is not obligated to present that procedure as an option, nor are they obligated to provide or perform the requested procedure
What does Schneiderman et al argue?
one of the reasons health care professionals might fail to appreciate the notion of medical futility is because they conflate the notions of effect and benefit.
Describe an effect
a mere change that some medical intervention or procedure has on a patient
What is a benefit?
A beneficial medical intervention or procedure will produce a change that improves the patient’s prognosis, comfort, well-being, or general state of health
True or false: If the goals of medical actions are to negatively affect a patient, then a medical action that benefits a patient, no matter how often the action is performed, should be considered medically futile
False. If the goals of medical actions are to benefit a patient, then a medical action that fails to benefit a patient, no matter how often the action is performed, should be considered medically futile
What is the quantitative aspect of medical futility?
the improbability or unlikelihood that an intervention will benefit the patient
What is the qualitative aspect of medical futility?
the quality of the benefit the action will involve, where that quality will be very poor or ineffective
Compare moral obligations with permissible actions
Obligation: something a person is required to do, given some moral reason or argument, permissible: something that is allowed, but it is not required
if medical futility is in some ways qualitative, that is, it is about the quality of the benefit brough about, why shouldn’t the patient be allowed to decide the quality of the benefit?
“while sometimes the patient’s opinion might be relevant, other times qualitatively poor results of a treatment or procedure are outside the realm of a patient’s autonomy and need not be available as a treatment option”
Describe a pluralistic society.
there are a plurality of valid conceptions of what is valuable in life
What are values?
things that we think matter in life
What do Truog et al argue?
the concept of medical futility isn’t actually about objective determinations of whether an action is or is not futile, but instead, it involves conflicts about what is valuable
What is physiologic futility?
a treatment that is “unable to achieve its physiological objective and so offers no physiological benefit to the patient”
Do Truog et al agree with Schneiderman et al’s suggestion of referring to the last 100 cases?
No, they think this a randomly decided number
What are some reasons for abandoning medical futility?
A treatment for one patient with a coexisting patient may be futile but not for another, fails to work as a concept that can help us with ethical issues surrounding resource allocation
What professional values do Troug et al’s idea include?
being compassionate, minimizing patient suffering and pain, and using their knowledge and expertise is used wisely and effectively
What is a social consensus?
is a kind of agreement we, as a society, might come to in terms of what we think the best course of action is in certain situations
