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Pipes, Colanders, and Leaky Buckets: Reflections on the Futility Debate

The issue of physician refusal of requested treatment has fueled a two-pronged debate in our society-one on the meaning of futility and the other on the limits of patient autonomy. The latter is a genuinely philosophic dispute; the former, it seems, is a modern relapse into nominalism. It is not the meaning of a word, but the moral basis for the actions of the par-ticipants that should be the focus of our attention, Yet the medical literature distracts us with articles titled “Medical Futility: Its Meaning and Ethical Implica-tions” “The Problem with Futility” “Who Defines Futility?,” “The Illusion of Futility,” and even “Beyond Futility.” The history of the futility debate, which was launched by a 1983 study of Bedell and Delbanco that demonstrated the ineffectiveness of CPR for certain catego-ries of patients, has been documented elsewhere. Here we will inquire if the term, and its rapid intrusion into the medical lexicon, serves a useful purpose or if, as Truog suggested, we would all be better off if this new buzzword were jettisoned.