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• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  In her New York Times article of January 20, “Complexities of Choosing an End Game for Dementia”, Paula Span reviewed the use of advance directives to withhold food and water as a way of avoiding living long into dementia. She wrote that “ethicists, lawyers and older adults themselves have begun a quiet debate about whether people who develop… Read more

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  Controlling the End Game of Dementia

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• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  Brittany Maynard, the courageous 29-year-old woman with terminal brain cancer, ended her life a month ago today. She and her husband had moved to Oregon so that Maynard could take advantage of that’s state’s Death with Dignity law. Although Maynard fit squarely into Oregon’s criteria and her death was not controversial, it did change the conversation… Read more

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  How Brittany Maynard Changed the Conversation about Aid in Dying

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• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  Death is hard to deal with anywhere, but France has some contradictory ways of providing end-of-life care, as two recent articles discuss. On the lighter side, Agence France-Presse reports on a novel service that one French hospital will launch next month to improve the quality of life of terminally ill patients: a wine bar in the… Read more

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  More French Paradoxes

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• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  Recently, I spoke with a seasoned health care reporter who was interested in Alzheimer’s and biomarkers because of his own family’s history of this disease. He started by asking, “Why would anyone not want to take this test?” – to “know,” so they could “plan”  – and then soon acknowledged that he was not at… Read more

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  Alzheimer’s Disease, Biomarkers, and Suicide: Why We Need to Think About All Three Together

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• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  I recently gave a talk about Alzheimer’s disease and asked people to imagine two individuals, Manny and Sue. Manny died at 85; he was showing signs of age but living independently and was mentally “all there.” Sue lived until 99. From the time she was 88, she began a slow cognitive decline. By 93, she… Read more

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  A Blood Test to Predict Alzheimer’s Disease: What’s the Elephant in the Room?

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• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  Two cases involving “brain death” have received considerable public attention, including commentary by several well-known bioethicists. In commenting on these cases the bioethicists have stated, in no uncertain terms, that an individual correctly diagnosed as “brain dead” is dead, pure and simple.  Contrary to appearances of being alive, in reality the “brain dead” individual is… Read more

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  Bioethics and the Dogma of “Brain Death”

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• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  Brain death is an immensely challenging concept to grasp, even for health care providers. The patients look like any other patient in the intensive care unit; they have vital signs, they are warm, sometimes their extremities even reflexively respond to stimulation. We turn them, we empty their drains, we tend to the machines supporting their… Read more

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  An ICU Nurse Discusses Brain Death

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• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  Family Lose Right-to-Life Case at U.K.’s Highest Court.” “Judges ‘Right’ to Allow Man to Die.” “Widow Loses ‘Withdrawn Treatment’ Case.” These were the headlines on a recent Supreme Court decision in the U.K. about end-of-life decision-making for a patient in a minimally conscious state: Aintree University Hospitals HNS Foundation Trust v James [2013] UKSC 67.… Read more

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  U.K.’s Landmark Case on Withholding Treatment Affirms the Importance of Patients’ Values

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• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

   There is a saying in ethics: you can’t get an “ought” from an “is.” Descriptions of the world as it is do not reveal truths about the world as it ought to be. Even when descriptions of real-world conditions suggest that something is seriously wrong — that our actions are causing unintended and avoidable harms… Read more

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  Getting from “is” to “ought” Near the End of Life

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• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  My sister called: “Get the orange card out of my wallet on the table. We need to call the study people.” In July, we got the news – Dad’s colon cancer was back. He had a six-month prognosis, so we began the planning: a big 95thbirthday party, caregiving schedule, trips to the doctor. Since I… Read more

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  Is Five Hours Too Short to Say Goodbye? My Dad’s Rapid Autopsy

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