BMJ  2005;330:415-417 (19 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7488.415

Education and debate

Timers on ventilators

Vardit Ravitsky, bioethics fellow1

1 Social and Behavioral Research Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA

Correspondence to: Department of Clinical Bioethics, Warren G Magnuson Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20892-1156, USA vravitsky@mail.nih.gov

Jewish religious law considers human intervention to end the life of dying patients unethical. Timers on ventilators are proposed as a solution to prevent unnecessary suffering

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Introduction

Is there a distinction between withholding and withdrawing medical treatment at the end of life? In the past two decades, courts and bioethicists in most Western countries have rejected this distinction.1 However, some doctors, patients, and families still find the distinction to have important ethical implications. A proposed Israeli law offers a unique approach that attempts to respect the cultural reluctance to withdraw treatment while finding a practical solution that respects the wishes of patients and families and allows patients to end their lives with dignity. The Israeli case offers important insights for other countries that want to combine their cultural identity and heritage with democratic and liberal values as well as for doctors in Western countries caring for patients and families that espouse different communal cultural traditions.

Objections to withdrawing treatment

The standard Western response to the reluctance of doctors and families to withdraw care is to dismiss it as an emotional reaction. . . . [Full text of this article]

A Jewish perspective

Regulating end of life treatment

Permitting termination of continuous care

Bioethical analysis


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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Temporal Perspectives on Ethics
Simon J Clark
bmj.com, 22 Feb 2005 [Full text]
Withdrawing and withholding may be different
shimon Glick
bmj.com, 28 Feb 2005 [Full text]
Timed out
Joanne M Shaw
bmj.com, 8 Mar 2005 [Full text]
Acts, Intentions and Timers on Ventilators
Andrew N Papanikitas
bmj.com, 9 Mar 2005 [Full text]
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