On the contrary, sometimes the ethical thing for doctors to do is to not try to save a life. The Hippocratic Oath says "First, do no harm"[1], and sometimes it'

On the contrary, sometimes the ethical thing for doctors to do is to not try to save a life. The Hippocratic Oath says "First, do no harm"[1], and sometimes it's harmful to try to save a person's life with interventions that decrease quality of life, especially when those interventions have a low probability of success. [1] Actually, the Hippocratic Oath doesn't say that, but I think not doing harm is more relevant to the modern social contract of being a doctor than the actual Hippocratic Oath is. The original contains promises to not use a knife on someone (so no modern surgery) and to never give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion (technically modern abortion doctors follow this because that's not how abortions are done now, but they're certainly not following the spirit of the oath).