Futility:
Case 2 Discussion
Both Case 1 and Case 2 illustrate the possible conflicts that can arise with patients or family members about withholding or withdrawing futile interventions. If you and other members of the health care team agree that the interventions in question would be futile, the goal should be to withdraw or withhold these interventions. Achieving this goal requires working in tandem with the patient and/or family, as well as drawing upon resources, such as social workers, hospital chaplains, and ethics committees. If there is no professional consensus about the futility of a particular intervention, then there is no ethical basis for overriding the requests of patients and/or family members for that intervention.
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