The use of medical technology is as commonplace today as the doctor’s ubiquitous black bag was sixty years ago. Technological advances have been both blessing and bane, allowing those who benefit to live longer, as with their chronic diseases. Of course, for many patients, this means being sicker longer. In end of life care scenarios, one such advance is creating complications — the automatic internal cardioverter-defibrillator (AICD), a life changing device use to pace and assist heart failure patients whose disorder would have shortened lives just a few years ago. An interesting tidbit of medical news today notes that the willful disconnection of such a device rarely occurs in such end of life discussions with patients and families in the way that cessation of drugs and other aspects of medical care are. An advocacy group of cardiologists and other medical subspecialists is out to change that. It has released guidelines on the withdrawal of support in the hospice and palliative patient and the ethics surrounding such an action. | LINK

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