Autonomy and authority in medical futility

摘要

Medical futility has been proposed for many years to define the procedure that simply prolongs the suffering of patients but heals nothing[1].To deal with the decision procedure for treatment,two ideas arise:patients’autonomy and doctors’authority.Widely recognized in 1960s,patients’autonomy respected patients’willingness over treatment,requiring specific consent for treatment and right to choose during medical procedure.Another idea for futility is doctors’authority,explained from the paternalistic perspective as well[2].Modern medicine,which is based on