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Judging Medical Futility: An Ethical Analysis of Medical Power and Responsibility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2009

Nancy S. Jecker  and
Lawrence J. Schneiderman
Nancy S. Jecker
Affiliation:
the book review editor for Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, associate professor at the University of Washington'sDepartments of Medical History, and Ethics and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Washington School of Law, Seattle
Lawrence J. Schneiderman
Affiliation:
a professor in the University of California San Diegodepartments of Community and Family Medicine and Medicine
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Extract

In situations where experience shows that a particular intervention will not benefit a patient, common sense seems to suggest that the intervention should not be used. Yet it is precisely in these situations that a peculiar ethic begins to operate, an ethic that Eddy calls “the criterion of potential benefit.” According to this ethic, “a treatment is appropriate if it might have some benefit.” Thus, the various maxims learned in medical school instruct physicians that “‘an error of commission is to be preferred to an error of omission,’ or ‘when in doubt, cut it out’ or ‘if but one patient is helped, then the treatment is worthwhile.’”

Type
Special Section: Beyond Autonomy
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , Winter 1995 , pp. 23 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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