Withdrawing and withholding treatment: comments on new guidelines

• Published in: Archives of disease in childhood Vol. 79; no. 1; pp. 1 - 2
• Main Authors: McHAFFIE, HAZEL E, FOWLIE, PETER W
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health 01-07-1998; BMJ Publishing Group LTD; BMJ Group
• Subjects: Annotation; Bioethics; Child; Child Health; Child, Preschool; Consultants; Critical Care; Death; Decision making; Ethics, Medical; Evidence; Focus Groups; Guidelines; Humans; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Intensive care; Intensive Care, Neonatal; Interviews; Narcotics; Nurses; Nutritional Support; Opinions; Palliative Care; Parents; Physicians; Practice Guidelines as Topic; Pregnancy; Refusal to Treat; Scientific Research; Studies; Teaching Methods; United Kingdom; Withholding Treatment; Empirical Approach; Death and Euthanasia; Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
• ISSN: 0003-9888; 1468-2044
• DOI: 10.1136/adc.79.1.1

In our interviews, junior doctors eloquently described a number of emergency situations they had experienced and the stress of carrying out such instructions in the face of overwhelming evidence that starting intensive treatment was ill advised. [...]opinion The guidelines suggest that obtaining a second opinion for legal reasons as well as clinical assurance might be adopted in the same way as for termination of pregnancy and brain stem death.