The purpose of this assignment is for students to address complex health care issues that may or may not have a policy solution.
Directions
- With regard to that statement do the following.
- Write a position paper that addresses whether or not patients and families have a right to insist on receiving medical treatment that medical authorities agree is futile.
- Provide evidence from a minimum of four references to support your position.
- Provide a concise and thoughtful response to the question which considers, at a minimum, the following elements. Three to four pages
- Stakeholders
- Government’s role and legislative substantiation.
- Outcomes, both negative and positive.
- Economic implications.
- Quality of life issues.
- Benefits to society.
- Write a position paper that addresses whether or not patients and families have a right to insist on receiving medical treatment that medical authorities agree is futile.
TO BE RE-WRITTEN FROM THE SCRATCH
Providing futile medical treatment
The ever-emerging new and innovative treatment options continue to offer hope to patients and their families that hitherto seemingly untreatable conditions may be treatable through more aggressive treatment and that there are improved end-of-care options. Knowledge of this by the patient through the ubiquitous information channels (e.g. Internet and mass media) has led to unprecedented patient sophistication, participation and expectation regarding their clinical situations. Because of this, patient’s autonomy, rights and medical ethics have become important issues. This is especially pronounced where the physician views further treatment as futile whereas the patient and their family are still expectant of a therapeutic solution (Willmott, White, Gallois, Parker, Graves, Winch, Callaway, Shepherdand Close, 2016). Such a situation raises clinical and ethical dilemmas.
Suffice to say there is no agreement on what constitutes “futile treatment” as there are often prognostic disagreements among physicians. The threshold for futility varies, with some physicians deeming 20% therapeutic benefit as futile while others consider it as futile when there is 0% benefit. Moreover some physicians want to try new treatments on the patient. Other physicians may fear admitting failure whereas others do not want to “abandon” the patient, having an emotional attachment. Hence there is confusion, controversy and debate as to what constitutes futile treatment(Howard and Pawlik, 2009).
Further, medical treatment futility is determined by the therapeutic goal. The goal could be to heal, to improve the quality of life or for end-of-life care. The patient and physician may not agree on the therapeutic goal, so this requires open communication and close collaboration between the two parties (Rubin and Bonomo, 2016). It is important tobe clear what the treatment aims to achieve so as to determine when the treatment is no longer useful.
Patient and the family hardly agree with the medical professionals about the futility of a treatment, with a tendency for families to want to prolong the treatment as a sign of care or love or as a compensation for their past neglect of their relative. In such situations, open communication from the start of the treatment between the two parties is important so as to set limits and to determine how to judge success or lack thereof. Treatment should be aimed at providing healthcare rather than impressing laypeople; be they the family, insurers or lawyers(Neville, Wiley, Yamamoto, Flitcraft, Anderson, Curtis and Wenger, 2015).Frank discussions and close collaboration between the parties also leads to suitable accommodations. Such accommodation may include prolonging the treatment to abate death of a pregnant woman until birth of a child or even supporting the patient to have good quality of life over Christmas period.
Moreover, if the family persists on pursuing treatment despite its futility, they may be encouraged to seek other opinions. As noted earlier, different physicians do not often agree on the futility of a treatment. Obstinate patient and family may be encouraged to pursue treatment with the physician(s) who feel the treatment is still beneficial.
When treatment is deemed futile, there is no professional obligation or government legislation requiring medical professionals to continue providing treatment(Willmott et al., 2016). Instead, the professionals are obliged to transition the patient to supportive care. Continuing to provide the futile treatment because a patient or the family insists…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Complex health care issues ….
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