End-of-Life Care Decisions: Importance of Reviewing Systems and Limitations After 2 Recent North American Cases

In the November 2012 Mayo Clinic Proceedings, anesthesiologists Christopher Burkle and Jeffre Benson provide a nice overview of present systems existing in the United States and Canada for resolving end-of-life decisions, including the difficulty in defining medical futility, the role of medical ethics committees, and controversies involving surrogate decision making.  They use the recent Barnes and Maraachli cases to highlight the difficulties surrounding medical futility conflicts. Best of all, the authors cite me about 50 times in their seven page article.