{"id":485,"date":"2013-08-13T15:37:10","date_gmt":"2013-08-13T13:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/?p=485"},"modified":"2013-09-12T14:48:31","modified_gmt":"2013-09-12T12:48:31","slug":"ethical-aspects-of-withdrawing-or-withholding-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/?p=485","title":{"rendered":"Ethical Aspects of Withdrawing or Withholding Treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/DigitalEditions\/mm1308\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Ethical Aspects of Withdrawing or Withholding Treatment\u00a0&#8211; MM1308<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Should health care practitioners (HCPs) preserve\u00a0all lives, at all cost and for as long as possible?\u00a0This view is attractive to many theologians and\u00a0arm-chair philosophers who proclaim the sanctity\u00a0of life. There is comfort and security for HCPs\u00a0holding this view as it removes the responsibility\u00a0for making some very difficult decisions and\u00a0leaves all in the hands of a \u201cHigher Being\u201d. There\u00a0is no need to consider others in the decision, costs\u00a0or the quality of life under review.<\/p>\n<p>Most bioethicists reject this absolutist premise.\u00a0The duty of care is not an absolute duty to\u00a0preserve life by all means. There is no obligation\u00a0to provide life sustaining treatment if:<br \/>\na) Its use is inconsistent with the aims and\u00a0objectives of an appropriate treatment plan,<br \/>\nand<br \/>\nb) The benefits of that treatment no longer\u00a0outweigh the burdens to the patient.<\/p>\n<p><em>Modern Medicine \u2013 August 2013<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ethical Aspects of Withdrawing or Withholding Treatment\u00a0&#8211; MM1308 Should health care practitioners (HCPs) preserve\u00a0all lives, at all cost and for as long as possible?\u00a0This view is&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2},"beyondwords_generate_audio":"","beyondwords_project_id":"","beyondwords_content_id":"","beyondwords_preview_token":"","beyondwords_player_content":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_code":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_delete_content":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_status":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5REYo-7P","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":517,"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions\/517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}