Medical Futility: Can a Physician Unilaterally Terminate Treatment for a Patient When he Believes Further Measures to be Futile?   Tags: biotechnology_law, health_law  

With patients like Karen Quinlan, Nancy Cruzan, and Terri Schiavo gaining nationwide notoriety in their efforts to control their individual healthcare decisions, end-of-life case have attracted the spotlight. Generally defined, a futile medical intervention is one which would serve no meaningful purpose, no matter how often a treatment is repeated. When the decision whether a certain treatment is futile requires a value judgment from a physician, like weighing the chance of a full recovery against the cost of maintaining the patient’s life, family members will often disagree with the physician’s medical opinion. The ultimate issues in these end-of-life cases become patient versus physician autonomy, the best interests of the patient, and the patient’s wishes regarding his care, if they can be ascertained.

Medical futility law and the rules regarding who is authorized to make decisions for a patient who is unable make healthcare decisions for himself are regulated by both state and federal law, and the variety of subjects to which medical futility decisions stretch make understanding the different aspects of the law extremely important, especially for practicing physicians. To date, the Supreme Court has not rendered a decision specifically answering the question raised here, but it has addressed similar issues, and there are many jurisdictions throughout the United States which have discussed and given their interpretation of the law regarding medical futility. Those court opinions, along with federal and state legislation give us a background of where the law began and where it is going in the future.

This research is intended as an introduction to the laws surrounding medical futility in the United States. The materials produced here were generated to offer the law student, attorney, or medical professional a starting point for researching issues surrounding end-of-life cases when further treatment seems inappropriate or unnecessary. This research guide provides both primary and secondary sources that pertain to specific areas of advance directive and medical futility law. Please use these sources as a guide in your research or for an example of how to perform research on a similar topic.

Drew Timmons is a third year student at Georgia State University’s College of Law. He will graduate in May of 2008 and plans to pursue litigation and health care law. This guide was developed for Professor Nancy P. Johnson’s Spring 2008 Advanced Legal Research Class.

Send an email to njohnson@gsu.edu for more information about this bibliography.

The annotations provided here do not constitute legal advice. This guide is designed to be a starting point for research and is not comprehensive. Further, this guide has not been updated since April 2008. Do not rely on the author's interpretations of the cases or statutes provided. If you have questions on how to proceed with your research, talk to the reference librarians.