Withdrawing life-sustaining treatment: ethical considerations.

In the community of caregivers, there is a general consensus that some heroic measures are not obligatory in certain circumstances that are defined by professional norms. For example, cardiopulmonary resuscitation in terminal cancer patients is not endorsed because of its violation of the dignity of the irremediably ill, and its unproductive cost to society. Moving back from this extreme, the availability and effectiveness of life-prolonging treatments, such as ventilators, dialysis, and implantable mechanical hearts, moves into a domain where the boundary limit of the obligation to preserve life is less clearly defined. When the continuing intervention of caregivers is essential to the prolongation of life, but the outcome and quality of residual life has deteriorated far below everyone's expectations when the treatment was initiated, caregivers are morally troubled as their treatments prolong the process of dying. Uncertainty or disputation about the prognosis raises the voltage of the fear and potential remorse that is a normal condition of care and support at the end of life. Unilateral decisions and overruling of objections should be avoided when possible, and reinforced by legal or ethical authorities when necessary. An ethics consultant, especially one skilled and experienced in management of end-of-life issues, can be a helpful negotiator and guide. The transition to palliative support should include the discontinuation of all unnecessary monitoring devices and tubes. Monitors should be turned off allowing families to direct their attention to the patient. Removing the monitor relieves family members from painful suspense and confusion. Removing the endotracheal tube sometimes allows conscious patients to talk to their loved ones, ending a silence forced on them by their treatment. If interventions are seen as masking the natural dying process, removing them should not be troubling. Their absence gives moral clarity to the elemental moments of closure at the end of life, no longer masked by futile contrivance. Withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment is a process that "merits the same meticulous preparation and expectation of quality that clinicians provide when they perform other procedures to initiate life support". Families and patients should never feel abandoned during this process and attention should be devoted to communicating that care is not being withdrawn. The family needs to be prepared for what the dying process may look like. Assure them that all energy is now being directed toward the comfort of the patient including sedation as required if signs of suffering are observed. Easing death, like easing birth, can be one of the most fulfilling contributions one can make to reduce the suffering and enrich the lives of patients and their families. Neglecting this part of the duty to provide appropriate care brings moral anguish to all participants in the peculiar circumstances that have come to surround death in the ICUs of developed countries. It is helpful to accept the inevitable reality that death is, in Shakespeare's words, a "necessary end" to all mortal life, and to recognize that defying death with technology can sometimes become an unnatural and degrading activity, however well motivated. The withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, when conducted expertly, is a shared human experience that can be gratifying, although difficult for all concerned.