Futile Medical Care

Futile medical care is the continued provision of medical care or treatment to a patient when there is no reasonable hope of a cure or benefit. This may be in the form of a surgeon operating on a terminal cancer patient or doctors keeping a brain-dead person on life-support machines for reasons other than to harvest their organs. It is a sensitive area that often causes conflicts between medical practitioners and patients or kin, who expect everything possible to be done for their loved ones, regardless of the cost or implications for other patients.

Proponents of evidence-based medicine may suggest discontinuing the use of any treatment that has not been shown to provide a measurable benefit. Where there is no hope for improvement of an incapacitating condition, no treatment is warranted. Futile care is distinct from euthanasia because euthanasia involves active intervention to end life, while withholding futile medical care does not encourage, nor speed the natural onset of death. The difference is of utmost importance to physicians who have taken and who adhere to the traditional Hippocratic oath, and have thus taken a professional vow that under no circumstances will they "prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause death."

One could say that it is impossible to reach a firm definition of futile medical care, because this would depend upon universal agreement about the point at which there is no further benefit to intervention, and different involved parties may always disagree about the amount and type of benefit under discussion. For instance, a cancer patient may be willing to undergo yet more chemotherapy with a very expensive medication for the benefit of a few weeks of life, while medical staff, the insurance company, and close relatives may all feel otherwise, for different reasons.

A 2010 survey of more than 10,000 physicians in the United States found respondents divided on the issue of recommending or giving "life-sustaining therapy when judged that it was futile", with 23.6% saying they would do so, 37% saying they would not, and 39.4% selecting "It depends".