Futile Treatment Summary

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The author described the futile treatment as the treatment that has a less than 10% chance of success. This treatment that has no meaning to prolonging survival or can only slow down an inevitable death (Li, 2012). He also goes on to describe that futile treatment is not black or white, rather it is a gray area where the quality of life needs to be addressed with the patient or legal next of kin. Health care providers, confronted with ethical dilemmas in which there is no manual on how to decide when to continue and discontinue treatment. All professionals in health care are taught bioethical principles which comprise of autonomy, justice, beneficence, and non-maleficence. According to the author, physicians in general choose to discontinue

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