Taking decisions about life sustaining treatment can be stressful for health professionals, whose training may have included little if any clinical ethics and health care law. House officers and nurses are often reported to be confused about what sort of care should be provided, and doctors' and patients' views of whether or not the patient should be resuscitated may conflict.In view of our medical conservatism perhaps we need a wider debate about life sustaining protocols. Taking part should be not only actual and potential patients but also the many groups who staff hospitals. One difficulty is the lack of research into the processes and effects of life sustaining treatment and its withdrawal on all concerned. If institutional protocols catch on they should be evaluated even if they seem obviously beneficial.
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