Medical Futility and Implications for Physician Autonomy

20 Pages Posted: 26 Jun 2009

Date Written: June 18, 1995

Abstract

The term "medical futility" has become a short-hand way to describe a situation in which a patient demands and a physician objects to the provision of certain medical treatment, on the ground that the treatment will provide no medical benefit to the patient. The issues surrounding medical futility became the subject of a federal high court opinion, In the Matter of Baby K, in which the Fourth Circuit held that hospital physicians were obligated under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) to provide treatment, in the form of ventilator support, to an anencephalic infant when she presented to the emergency room. Despite pleas by physicians that rendering intensive care to Baby K was "medically and ethically inappropriate", the court found that the plain language of federal law imposed a duty to provide treatment. This article explores the role that assertions of a physician's professional conscience, such as those expressed in Baby K, play in the active debate surrounding the provision of treatment that is of questionable value to patients, their families, and ultimately to our society. Though the medical futility debate is complex in the moral dilemmas it poses, ultimately its resolution must be simple enough for adaptation by the institutions comprising our health care system. Those institutions include our judicial system, state and federal legislatures, and provider institutions across our country. This article attempts to better understand and anticipate how each of these essential actors will balance the values of patients and their physicians, by investigating the role each has played in the medical futility debate from the perspective of physician autonomy. In conclusion, this Article attempts to provide a framework for answering these difficult questions by suggesting that physicians and their sponsoring hospitals clearly define and publicize the limits of treatment they are willing to provide in any given circumstance.

Suggested Citation

Daar, Judith F., Medical Futility and Implications for Physician Autonomy (June 18, 1995). American Journal of Law and Medicine, Vol. 21, pp. 221-240, 1995, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1422104

Judith F. Daar (Contact Author)

Whittier Law School ( email )

3333 Harbor Blvd.
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
United States
714-444-4141 (Phone)
714-444-1854 (Fax)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
109
Abstract Views
705
Rank
450,735
PlumX Metrics