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Is this a physician-specific thing? If you ask the children of EOL patients whether they'd want aggressive treatment for their parents, I'd bet they'd in gener

Is this a physician-specific thing? If you ask the children of EOL patients whether they'd want aggressive treatment for their parents, I'd bet they'd in general be way more interested in it than the parents themselves too. In fact if the children landed in the ICU, I'd bet the EOL parents would also be more interested in giving their children aggressive care than themselves. How much of this is anything beside human nature?

rattray 5y ago
> How much of this is anything beside human nature? Experience. Having seen it before. All the way through. Many times. Yes, an MD fresh out of medical school might react just like anyone else: try to preserve/prolong life of their loved ones at all costs. Once they've worked in the ICU for even a few months? They swear they'd never do that to a loved one. (source: live with a medical resident)
redis_mlc 5y ago
> If you ask the children of EOL patients whether they'd want aggressive treatment for their parents, I'd bet they'd in general be way more interested in it than the parents themselves too. Depends on the age and disease. It was a pretty obvious decision to pull the plug on a relative because at their advanced age, there was no "getting better" from end-stage cancer. Also, "crashing" an elderly person often means breaking their ribs, etc. which means they'll never get out of the hospital bed. So no quality of life.