Abstract

Schneiderman, Jecker, and Jonsen disagree with two recent policy statements of professional medical organizations over whether to call some medical interventions “inappropriate” or “potentially inappropriate” that have previously been labelled “futile.” I would agree that inappropriate is a hopelessly ambiguous term that should not be used in the long-running debate, more normally referred to as the futility controversy. I find, however, that Schneiderman, Jecker, and Jonsen end up with the same policy conclusion as the two policy statements. When patients or their surrogates disagree with clinicians about whether to provide certain treatments, they all...