Withholding and Withdrawing Life-sustaining Therapy
Excerpt
American Thoracic Society (ATS) members who practice pulmonary and critical care medicine commonly care for patients receiving mechanical ventilation and other life-sustaining therapy. They not only participate in decisions to withhold and withdraw such therapy but are also professionally and personally involved in the medical, ethical, and legal issues arising from those decisions. Recognizing the importance of these issues to its membership, the ATS Board of Directors approved formation of an ad hoc Bioethics Task Force to develop an official ATS statement related to withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining therapy.
The purpose of this statement is to define acceptable standards of
This 100-word excerpt has been provided in the absence of an abstract.
Note in Proof
This document should not be interpreted as providing legal advice regarding these issues; for the purpose of obtaining such legal advice, because legal limits related to these issues continue to evolve and because states and other jurisdictions may differ substantially from each other, readers are strongly advised to confer with an attorney who has expertise and current knowledge of this subject in their local jurisdiction.
Article and Author Information
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↵* Prepared by the American Thoracic Society (ATS) Bioethics Task Force, an ad hoc committee of the Section of Critical Care: Paul N. Lanken, MD, Chain Barbara D. Ahlheit, MSN, RN; Stephen Crawford, MD; John H. Hansen-Flaschen, MD; Stephen S. Lefrak, MD; John M. Luce, MD; Michael A. Matthay, MD; Molly L. Osborne, MD, PhD; Thomas A. Raffin, MD; James L. Robotham, MD; Paul A. Selecky, MD; Gordon L. Snider, MD; Donald D. Storey, MD; and Peter B. Terry, MD. Consultants to the Task Force were Cynthia B. Cohen, PhD, JD; Albert R. Jonsen, PhD; Alan Meisel, JD; Lawrence J. Nelson, PhD, JD; and Ellen Covner Weiss, JD. This statement was adopted by the ATS Board of Directors in March 1991.
This article appeared in the American Review of Respiratory Disease (Am Rev Respir Dis. 1991;144:727-732) and is republished here with the permission of the publisher.
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