Medical Futility Blog

In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court left the legality of medical aid in dying to the "laboratory of the states." Today, fourteen stat...

It was an honor to collaborate with the National VSED Advance Directive Committee to create an improved Advance Directive for Voluntary Sto...

This is a  solid question on brain death from a service that helps medical students prepare for the USMLE. I bet that many clinicians selec...

I just received a Chinese paperback version of our Oxford University Press book on VSED . Interest in this end-of-life option has been growi...

There are now dozens of podcasts from geriatricians, palliative care clinicians, and death doulas. But at least on radio station has a regul...

It was a pleasure to be a part of today's New York Times story on the state of medical aid in dying in the United States.

Submit your proposal here for the 2026 National Aging & Law Conference by June 15, 2026.  The theme is The Right to Age Well: Advancing...

The UK Court of Protection has again criticized a hospital for failing to timely bring an application to withdraw life-sustaining treatment....

Apparently in response to high-profile media stories criticizing the fairness, safety, and transparency of the U.S. transplant system, combi...

In 10 days I will be in Denver, Colorado for  Empowering End of Life Care: Medical Aid in Dying Second Annual Conference. I am looking forwa...

The  latest in a long line of studies confirms that combining graphical and textual information, as opposed to text only, improves communic...

The latest issue of the Canadian Journal of MAiD has been published . This journal is published twice yearly in English and French. It featu...

Medical aid in dying is authorized in 14 U.S. states. But usage rates vary tremendously. Rates remain low in most states, and especially low...

As I have explained, for example in this University of Chicago video , clinicians across the country violate the dead donor rule every singl...

Join us in Indianapolis from October 14-17, 2026, at  ASBH  - the biggest bioethics meeting in the United States.   We continue our decade-p...

It was a pleasure to engage with members of the Hemlock Society of San Diego this week. And I was extra lucky to get some face time with Fa...

I posted my  600 slides here for today's UCSD Faye Girsh Endowed Lecture on Medical Aid in Dying. This is the Zoom link . There is a se...

Oxford University Press has just published Great Ormond Street Hospital Textbook of Paediatric Bioethics and Law.  Thus is the first defini...

I blogged about Milo in February 2025. Unfortunately, now just over a year later, we lost Peaches.  Born July 2, 2010, Peaches died this mo...

Most Americans do not have an advance directive. And most of those advance directives are not available when the patient is admitted and inc...