Doctors make life-or-death decisions for their patients every day. They're the ones who finally remove the latex gloves and call time-of-death. But it's the relatives who have to live with that decision. So in borderline cases such as premature birth, terminal illness, or severe brain damage, when a patient can't speak for himself, who should unlock him from limbo: his doctor or his family? Two PT bloggers disagreed about how to handle a sick child.
The doctors: In cases where a child is never going to recover, the writing is on the wall, yet the doctors may be the only ones willing to read it. And when doctors choose not to, or not to read it aloud, they condemn patients' families to living with either the tormenting misery of having a comatose child or the tormenting notion of initiating the child's execution. Neither is acceptable. Parents may be better off not having to decide. Let us not endorse a person's right to choose over her right to live guilt-free thereafter. —Talya Miron-Shatz, Ph.D. (Baffled by Numbers) researches medical decision-making at Princeton University.
