The procedures for structuring clinical ethics case reflections in a childhood cancer care setting are presented, including an eight-step model. Four notable characteristics of the procedures are: members of the inter-professional health care team, not external experts, taking a leading role in the reflections; patients or relatives not being directly involved; the model explicitly addressing values and moral principles instead of focussing exclusively on the interests of involved parties; using a case-based (inductive) rather than principle-based (deductive) method. By discusing the (...) advantages and disadvantages of the proposed procedures, our paper aims to contribute to the literature on models and procedures for ethical analysis that can be used in clinical settings. It is suggested that our proposed procedures have some advantageous features when it comes to promoting health care staff’s learning to structure their thinking about ethical issues. (shrink)

Background: Despite their negative consequences, evidence shows that futile medical treatments are still being provided, particularly to terminally ill patients. Uncovering the reasons behind providing such treatments in different religious and sociocultural contexts can create a better understanding of medical futility and help manage it effectively. Research objectives: This study was undertaken to explore Iranian nurses’ and physicians’ perceptions of the reasons behind providing futile medical treatments. Research design: This was a qualitative exploratory study. Study data were gathered through conducting (...) in-depth semi-structured personal interviews and analyzed using the conventional content analysis method. Participants and research context: Twenty-one nurses and nine medical specialists were recruited purposively from four teaching hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Nursing and Midwifery Research Center and the Research Ethics Committee of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. All participants gave informed consent for the research and that their anonymity was preserved. Findings: The main theme of the study was “having an obligation to provide medical treatments despite knowing their futility.” This theme consisted of three main categories including patients’ and family members’ request for continuing life-sustaining treatments, healthcare professionals’ personal motives, and organizational atmosphere and structure. Discussion and conclusion: Different personal and organizational factors contribute to providing futile medical treatments. Promoting the structure and the function of hospital ethics committees, establishing and developing home care facilities, increasing the number of palliative care centers and hospices, and educating healthcare professionals, patients, and family members about the services and the benefits of such centers can facilitate making wise decisions about continuing or discontinuing treatments which have been labeled as futile. (shrink)

In an effort at ethical reform, Taiwan recently revised the Hospice Palliative Care Law authorising family members or physicians to make surrogate decisions to discontinue life-sustaining treatment if an incompetent terminally ill patient did not express their wishes while still competent. In particular, Article 7 of the new law authorises the palliative care team, namely the physicians, to act as sole decision-makers on behalf of the incompetent terminally ill patient's best interests if no family member is available. However, the law (...) fails to provide guidance as to what constitutes the patient's best interests or what specific procedures the treating physicians should follow, and so has raised constitutional concerns. It may be difficult to translate ethical reform into law but it is not impossible if essential requirements are carefully followed. First, there must be substantial nexus between the purpose of the statute and the measures provided under the statute. Second, advocates need to convince the public that futility or waste has amounted to a public health emergency so as to justify lower procedural requirements. Third, a remedy or compensation should be available if the surrogate decisions have not been appropriately made. Fourth, minimum procedural safeguards are necessary even though the statute is intended to reduce the procedural burdens of making surrogate decisions on behalf of incompetent patients who lack family members and did not express their wishes while still competent. (shrink)

Documenting capacity assessments and identifying substitute decisionmakers in healthcare facilities is ethically required for optimal patient care. Lack of such documentation has the potential to generate confusion and contention among patients, their family members, and members of the healthcare team. An overview of our research at the Ottawa Hospital and issues that influence the consistency of documentation in the Canadian context are presented here, as well as ideas for the mitigation of these issues and ways to encourage better documentation.