Abstract
Physicians are professionals, and the highest professional ethical standard places the welfare of the professional’s patients first and foremost. Problems involved with intensive care and organ failure exemplify both the high cost of health care and poor or limited prognosis of terribly sick patients in combination with concerns about privacy, dignity, the primacy of the individual, and the right to die peacefully with one’s loved ones close at hand. No respectable physician prolongs life by mechanical or artificial means when it is unnecessary, unqualitative, or futile. But how does one determine necessity or quality or futility? Ethical discussions abound; living wills attempt to control one’s fate, and legal battles continue.
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© 1997 Springer-Verlag Italia
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Baue, A.E., Baue, R.D. (1997). Medical Decision Making in Critical Care The Patient as a Person. In: Gullo, A. (eds) Anaesthesia, Pain, Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine — A.P.I.C.E.. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2296-6_92
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2296-6_92
Publisher Name: Springer, Milano
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