Medical Futility Blog

Nanette Ryan offers a fresh defense of the judgments in the high profile pediatric UK NBT/PIT cases Charlie Gard, Alfie Evans, and Isaiah ...

MAiD in Canada has posted some useful infographics on the Canadian medical assistance in dying.  Some summarize the process. Some summarize...

This summer has seen at least three brain death conflicts escalate to court. First, was Annelise Camp in Houston, Texas. Second, was Ailin ...

ICEL 6, the Sixth International Conference on Assisted Dying and Other End of Life Care,  will be held in Amsterdam in the Netherlands in S...

A new report from the UK Public Service Ombudsman shows gaps in communication in end-of-life care.  This includes:  Communication with pati...

On Saturday morning at ASBH 2026 , be sure to catch "Increasing alignment of clinician decisions to withhold or withdraw life-sustainin...

Join me at the NYU Transplant Ethics & Policy Conference in New York City on October 22, 2026.   I'm addressing UAGA amendments. Ev...

It was a pleasure to contribute to this Bloomberg Law story  on the five nearly identical lawsuits challenging the legitimacy of MAID laws...

Vera Prochazkova is a physician and Senator in the Czech Senate. This year, she introduced legislation that would provide a process for reso...

Check out this story that we just published at KEVINMD: "Why Problems with Advance Directives Keep Harming Patients ."  We highl...

Jeffrey P. Bishop, Yolonda Y. Wilson, and Jason T. Eberl seek proposals for chapters in a new volume for the  The Blackwell Philosophy and P...

Several sessions at the 2026 ASBH Conference in Indianapolis will address one of the most common issues in clinical ethics: decision making...

95-year-old Tiem Thi Nguyen had dementia, kidney disease, and other illnesses. She also had a POLST indicating DNR. But when she stopped bre...

It was a pleasure to contribute to today's New York Times story on growing conflict over brain death testing and brain death determinat...

Almost all patients who have been the subject of medical futility / NBT / PIT conflicts have been unconscious or otherwise incapacitated. Bu...

MAID, VSED, and MCF are popular topics at the 2026 ASBH Conference in Indianapolis. Thursday, October 15, 2026  Incurable and Irreversible:...

Brain death and the dead donor rule are big topics at the 2026 ASBH Conference in Indianapolis.  Thursday, October 15, 2026     Understandi...

This recent ABC News story  focuses  primarily on recent legalization of MAID/VAD in the ACT and on ongoing efforts to do the same in the N...

Now that France has authorized medical aid in dying, it is appropriate to reexamine VSED for all the terminally ill and seriously ill Frenc...

You are invited to a special gathering introducing The Cheryl Hauser Effect , a documentary now in its final stage of production. Come Sept...

This recent webinar nicely illustrated how medical futility conflicts are navigated differently in South Africa. The discussion referenced t...

VSED bridge to MAID is falling down, falling down in London. The new  Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill explicitly excludes VSED as a...

Even subtle differences in clinician phrasing meaningfully shape people's attitudes toward DNR.  A new study shows that selective phras...

Thee 18th Death, Dying and Disposal Conference ( DDD2027 ) will take place at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, September 2027. The confer...

The dead donor rule has been a fixture of organ transplantation for sixty years. But in light of frequent intentional and accidental breache...