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Lessons From Quantifying Futility
Lee Green, MD, MPH
Arch Fam Med. 1995;4(4):308-309.
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IN THIS ISSUE of the ARCHIVES, Ebell1 details two quantitative contributions to the growing literature on futility in medical therapy. The notion of futility is controversial, but the controversy centers primarily on how the concept is defined and applied rather than on the merits of the concept itself. The notion of futility is an intuitively appealing one to practitioners trapped by their own technology, as in our profession. We have developed powerful means to preserve some physiological functions, but we apply those means relatively indiscriminately. Our capacity to evaluate the usefulness of technology lags far behind our capacity to develop it; hence, the existence of technology tends almost to guarantee its use even when that use is of no benefit.
Providing futile care is frustrating to physicians and contributes to professional cynicism. At the same time, impressive technological heroics contribute to unrealistic expectations on the part of patients and
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
Author Affiliations
University of Michigan Medical School Ann Arbor
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