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Martin Derrow MD FACP's avatar

The problem is exacerbated by unrealistic expectations on the part of patients, their loved ones, sometimes their physicians and by the compartmentalization of care, particularly in-patient. Multiple specialists address their areas but no one advocates for the patient. On many occasions when caring for my patients clearly near the end of life, still receiving aggressive and likely futile care, I reminded them they were in charge and encouraged them to discuss the goals of treatment or stopping treatment with all their physicians. I sometimes called those physicians to give them a heads up.

When my father was near the end of his life, at 95 years old, with progressive dementia, he was hospitalized once again, this time with hematuria caused by an recurrent bladder tumor and his anticoagulation for a fib. I learned he was increasingly confused, at times combative, and in pain. I flew home to see him, found him with an IV, restrained. He had a poorly functioning Foley catheter, the source of his pain and agitation, bloody urine draining from and around the catheter. I called the urologist and asked him to remove the catheter, called the cardiologist and asked him to stop the DOAC, called his internist and asked him to remove the restraints and edit his med list, and with my family, arranged for him to return to the familiar surroundings of his home where he was fortunate to receive excellent supportive care and where he subsequently died.

Those of us in medicine have looked behind the curtain, we often know too well when care is futile. We have the ability to advocate for ourselves and our loved ones for aggressive care when appropriate and when to step back. For most people, that type of informed advocacy is lacking.

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David Sterner's avatar

As a surgical intern at a major, Ivy League hospital in 1988, I attended a Saturday morning presentation by a guest trauma surgeon, who presented statistics that showed that an ICU admission for a medical (non-surgical) patient with 2 or more failing organ systems carried a 100% mortality rate for that hospitalization. ICUs were developed to facilitate treatment for acute, life-threatening medical problems with a reasonable chance of recovery. It amazes me that 30+ years later, ICU admissions are still used for chronically ill patients as a futile "last-ditch effort" simply because no frank conversation with the patients and their families have occurred, or the physician's judgment is supplanted in favor of uninformed, unrealistic "patient wishes." As budgets are tightened, these issues may finally be addressed, but I fear that having the ICU beds available will still result in them being used for these unfortunate victims of modern medicine, whose bodies are poked, prodded, and invaded in their last, undignified hours and days.

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