Wrong medicine

As medical costs soar and technologies proliferate, an intense controversy has arisen over the notion of medical futility. Should doctors be doing all that they are doing? Are patients and families entitled to demand any treatment they wish from a physician? Should life-support be considered futile if the patient is permanently unconscious or too sick to leave the intensive care setting? In exploring these timely questions, Schneiderman and Jecker reexamine the doctor-patient relationship and call for a restoration of common sense and reality to what we expect from medicine. They discuss economic, historical, and demographic factors that affect medical care and often clear definitions of what constitutes futile medical treatment. And they address such topics as the limits on unwanted treatment, the shifts from the "Age of Physician Paternalism" to the "Age of Patient Autonomy," health care rationing, and the adoption of new ethical standards.