title: Medical futility.
abstract: Recent discussions about futility have been useful in elucidating health professionals' responsibility to communicate, to establish trust, and to collaborate with patients and families about end-of-life decisions. They have highlighted the often impersonal and fragmented care that patients receive in today's large medical centers. Futility also has been a stalking horse for the much more important and problematic issue of rationing. The latter must be discussed on its own merits, however painful that may be.
authors.affiliation: Case Western Reserve University Center for Biomedical Ethics, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Youngner
mesh_terms: D030881:Disclosure; D015276:Health Care Rationing; D006801:Humans; D018447:Medical Futility; D010344:Patient Advocacy; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D011368:Professional-Family Relations; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D040841:Resource Allocation; D012945:Social Values; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D035502:Trust; D035501:Uncertainty; D014481:United States; D028761:Withholding Treatment