Medical Futility Blog

Join me on Friday for a half-day symposium on decision making for unrepresented patients. Registration is free . Here is the agenda.   Welco...

At the current rate of 2000 pageviews per day, the Medical Futility Blog is on track to reach six million pageviews by the end of 2026. And...

This wooden statute of Saint Peter of Alcantara was carved by Pedro de Mena in the 1600s. It caught my attention, this weekend, in the Cleve...

Jason Wasserman presented his work on institutional conscience rights, this weekend, at ICCEC. It is available here  and will be published w...

Here are abstracts that were just accepted for presentation at the World Federation of Right to Die Societies ( WFRTDS ) International Confe...

Every year, millions of patients with disabilities decide that living with their disability is intolerable. So, they hasten their death. Sin...

For a decade, most of the tens of thousands of patients who received a prescription for medical aid in dying received a prescription for D-D...

Join the Hemlock Society of San Diego here on Sunday, June 14 at 1:00 PM (San Diego time) for The Switzerland Option: Why Some Americans Ar...

I am in Cleveland for the rest of this week to participate in sessions on clinical ethics at the International Conference on Clinical Ethics...

On May 22, 2026, I was guest speaker for the Faye Girsh endowed lecture on Medical Aid in Dying at the UCSD School of Medicine: Medical Aid ...

Join me at ICCEC  on Thursday, June 11, 2026, at 2:00PM for  Better Informed Consent Technology: New Tools to Protect Patient Autonomy . My...

It's been a rewarding and enjoyable weekend discussing MAID, VSED, and related issues other at the Colorado End of Life Options  annual ...

Like patients using MAID, patients using VSED typically have serious physical illnesses such as cancer and ALS. But just as an increasing nu...

Patients with ALS in Massachusetts, like patients elsewhere, are disproportionately interested in controlling the timing and manner of their...

Join me at ICCEC next Friday, June 12, 2026, at 11:30AM in Room 3 for  Robot Surrogates: AI’s Growing Role in Both Guiding and Making Heal...

Submit your abstract for the  2027 Clinical Ethics Unconference. It will be in Denver, Colorado, on Monday and Tuesday, March 8-9, 2027.  C...

I recently blogged about a New York court that issued an injunction prohibiting the hospital from conducting brain death testing. This is o...

Almost all 30,000 U.S. patients who received a MAID prescription have been on hospice. And hospices receive almost all of their income from ...

The first of three-part newspaper series examines medical aid in dying in New Jersey. The subtitle captures the problem: "Assisted dea...

Registration is open for the 2026 International Shared Decision Making Conference (ISDM 2026), taking place July 7–10, 2026 in Hanover, New...