Medical Futility Blog

It is a pleasure to see "minimal comfort feeding" (MCF) getting more attention as an end-of-life option, for example, here in the...

The final lines in Andre Picard's recent review of the first ten years of MAID in Canada is poetic and inspiring.  Assisted death is on...

I have repeatedly argued that clinicians do not need consent to conduct brain death testing. They do not need consent in the United States ...

It was a great pleasure to work with this team to continue developing end-of-life options to avoid living into late-stage dementia. Today, t...

My latest article appears in the  July 2026   American Journal of Bioethics - Conscience Clause Laws Already Permit Secular Hospitals to Wit...

Arizona has enacted  H.B. 2772  which directs the Department of Transportation to provide on each driver license and on each nonoperating id...

It is difficult for patients with dementia as their sole underlying medical condition to qualify for medical aid in dying (MAID) in the Unit...

While most of my recent meetings and presentations have focused on end-of-life options, I am excited to participate, in a few days, in the 1...

End-of-life decisions can feel overwhelming. But a new website ( We Can Choose ) is helping people in Canada find clear, practical, and comp...

Unrepresented patients lack decision-making capacity to make their own healthcare decisions. And they also lack any available surrogate to m...

VSED is the topic of a feature article in the  latest issue of Compassion & Choices Magazine. Important acknowledgment that many patien...

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...