The question of futile or non-beneficial care is a constant feature of day-to-day work in the ICU, and it is surprising that it receives so little attention in any forum (be it the media, the college exams, or even in the core business of most hospital specialties). Unfortunately "futile" is a term loaded with unnecessary emotional content which lacks any standard medical definition, and in any given scenario a group of clinicians will disagree as to what futile care is. However, it is widely acknowledged that often we use "considerable resources without a reasonable hope that the patient would recover to a state of relative independence", with death being viewed as treatment failure.
Historically, this issue has been explored in the following SAQs:
How does one answer these? An exam-oriented approach to a situation where ICU-level care appears to be futile needs to be focused on the examiner's perception of what a safe practitioner might to in a given situation. Most of the abovementioned SAQs are about a clearly unsuitable patient being referred to the ICU for some therapy which will impose a significant level of discomfort upon the patient without offering them a significant chance of recovery. The following generic answer template should help the candidate find something to write about any given ethical quagmire.
That is probably enough to answer the futility questions in the SAQs. These are generally SAQs from a distant bygone era when the college seemed to welcome various forms of flowing long-form essay as an answer. In this cynical age, such difficult-to-mark SAQs have been promoted into vivas. It is much easier for an examiner to subjectively determine that you're an unethical monster from listening to ten minutes of conversation, than to objectively determine this from the quality of your written response. Ergo, this chapter can be viewed as a preliminary step to preparing for the communication viva.
Regional variations in legislation and culture make the content of this chapter impossible to export across national borders; in the sense that nothing can be written about this subject that would remain equally valid in both Saudi Arabia and America. Abandoning all hope of writing something generalisable, the author has decided to write this chapter with an unashamedly Australia-centric bias. Thus, the ANZICS Statement on Care and Decision-Making at the End of Life for the Critically Ill Patient is the definitive reference document here, with the rest of this chapter basically acting as a series of elaborate footnotes. The other essential memorandum is the CICM IC-14, Statement on Witholding and Withdrawing Treatment. Further canonical reading regarding end-of-life decisionmaking can be found in Oh's Manual, Ch 7 ("Ethics in intensive care" by Raper and Fisher, p. 55) and Ch 11 ("Palliative Care" by Cox and Soni, p. 85) from the 7th edition. Another excellent resource would have to be the 2006 article by Danbury and Waldmann "Ethics and law in the intensive care unit". The ANZICS paper from Myburgh et al (2016) is also worth looking at, mainly because ANZICS and Myburgh. The excellent LITFL chapter on medical futility draws its inspiration from an article by Michael Ardagh (2000), which could serve as a stand-alone reading resource for this topic when time is short.
Ethical problems in ICU tend to arise as the consequence of competing values or ethical principles. Those principles in some detail are as follows:
For instance, in Question 1c from the second paper of 2002 a patient is referred to the ICU after a palliative procedure results in lifethreatening complications. On one hand, beneficence recommends we take this patient to the ICU and resuscitate her. On the other hand, utility and social justice recommend we reserve those resources for salvageable patients. Autonomy would be the major decider in this case, as the patient herself may have strong views about what she might want happen in this scenario. Some of this needs to be reflected thoughtfully in the frenzied scribble of a ten-minute SAQ answer.
LITFL's Chris Nickson makes an excellent effort to define this otherwise undefinable term by quoting several sources and classifying medical futility by levels of "obviousness", using systems quoted in an article by Michael Ardagh (2000). In short, one can classify the futility of a treatment according to how patently ridiculous the treatment appears, and how many people agree that this is so.
The therapy, though probably well-intentioned, cannot bring about the intended results because that would violate the laws of physics, or something equally fundamental. Into this category fall such things as prayer and the use of homeopathic remedies.
The advantage of this definition is the near-total separation of the clinician's values from the decision. I'm not making a value judgement, you might argue; science itself dictates that the therapy is clearly pointless. However, others might argue that to take this stance is itself a value judgement. You decide that objective measurement of physiological organ function is an important goal; you make that value choice, and you choose that goal as more important than the value of the outcome for the patient as the patient might perceive it. This could give rise to conflict with hippies and the religious.
Another issue with physiological futility is the near-insurmountable problem of authoritarian disregard patient autonomy. This is discussed very well in a paper by Waisel and Truog (1995). Essentially, the underlying concept is that doctors have no obligation to undertake a medical therapy that does not offer achievable and appropriate goals. Thus, unilateral decisionmaking regarding therapy can take place, where the clinician knows what's best. This approach fails to take into account the possibility that the patient themselves might want some input into the process, particularly into helping define what goals are appropriate and what steps might be tolerable to achieve them.
Latly, one could argue that physiological futility is a matter which separates the effect of a treatment from its benefit. A treatment may achieve the effect it is prescribed for, eg. increase the cardiac output in the case of levosimendan, and is therefore not physiologically futile, but it may still be non-beneficial.
Schneiderman et al (1994) proposed we define futility in terms of quantitative treatment effect estimates and qualitiative estimates of the predicted effect size. The quantitative estimate is pure numbers, i.e. the therapy is futile if it has "failed in the last defined number of times attempted" with 100 successful attempts suggested by the authors as a (totally arbitrary) threshold for this definition. The qualitative estimate involves making a prediction about the patient's quality of life which might result from the proposed therapy: the therapy is futile if the quality of life "falls well below the threshold considered minimal by general professional judgment"
One hardly knows where even begin to discuss the problems with this definition. For one, it would be extremely paternalistic for an intensivist to make a judgement call as to what quality of life is "well below the threshold considered minimal ". Sure, for all doctors and generally for most sane people "treatments which merely preserve unconsciousness or cannot end dependence on intensive medical care" would appear as qualitatively futile. However, that's our values we are using, and some might argue that any imposition of the physician's values on the patient is a violation of their right to self-determination.
In an attempt to extract medicine from the ethical swamp into which it constantly threatens to sink, one might create a more pragmatic definition, one which calls upon some sort of joint decision made by society and informed by the wisdom of the clinician. Operational futility is therefore the concept where a therapy is considered futile when a sufficiently large number of people (lay and professional) agree that it is so. The therapy is “so unlikely to succeed that many people... would consider it not worth the cost”.
This again shifts the decisionmaking away from the patient and family. Except a wise all-knowing authoritarian clinician is no longer imposing their values on you. Now, it's a collective of "many people—professional and lay persons". How that is better, difficult to say. Surely to move decisionmaking power further from the directly involved individuals will degrade the quality of the decisions made. To defer that power to a group not directly involved, and potentially not equipped with all the important information or historical context, might result in a complete disaster. Look what happened when morons took over the Terri Schiavo case. The only potential benefit from this rule by mediocrity is the arse-covering effect of not having to be the only person who makes a decision.
Question 13 from the first paper of 2022 asked specifically about this, and worded it in this exact way ("outline the ICU physician’s responsibilities in this process"). The question started with a stem, "the ANZICS statement on care and decision making at the end of life for the critically ill outlines the process for shared decision making about treatment options", suggesting that they expected their answer to be quoting from the ANZICS document. Some burgundy-bordered boxes do exist in that paper (eg. p. 53), representing ANZICS recommendations for this process. So that the trainee does not need to refer to the entire 148-page document during their revision, they have been extracted and listed her, verbatim:
ANZICS recommendations:
- Intensivists should refrain from using this term ‘euthanasia’ in end-of-life care discussions and simply describe exactly what actions are taking place (such as withdrawal of mechanical ventilation).
- The reasons for withholding or withdrawing therapy should be discussed with specific patientfocused language. Therapies that will be given and those that will be withheld should simply be described. Avoid using the terms ‘futile’ and ‘futility’.
- Legislation often differs among jurisdictions and therefore what is lawful in one jurisdiction may be unlawful in another. ANZICS recommends that intensivists ensure they are familiar with the relevant laws that apply to their specific situation.
- Intensivists seek, identify and comply with a patient’s expressed preferences regarding treatment limitation unless there is good reason to believe that the patient’s preference would have changed at the time that a treatment decision needs to be made.
- Where appropriate that intensivists assist patients, or substitute decision-makers on behalf of a patient who does not have capacity, to consider and document a patient’s preferences regarding limitation of future treatment.
- Intensivists complete treatment limitation orders in any patient for whom a treatment limitation is in the patient’s best interests, or where the treatment limitation complies with the patient’s or substitute decision-makers expressed preference regarding a limitation of treatment.
- All ICU staff should obtain expertise in:
- effective symptom control in the dying ICU patient
- communicating effectively with dying patients and their families, and with other health professionals who may also be involved in the care of those persons.
- Intensivists should take a leadership role in end-of-life discussions within the ICU. This involves being inclusive and potentially flexible around decision-making at the end of life.
- All intensivists should be able to assess a patient’s capacity.
- All discussions of end-of-life care should take place in a context of mutual respect for all participants and this context should be actively sought and supported.
- All staff involved with the dying ICU patient should undertake education in how to communicate effectively with critically ill patients and their families around the end of life.
- Intensivists should use patient-focused and family-focused language and involve cultural advisers and translators where the cultural or language differences might impede communication and understanding.
- End-of-life decisions should be formally and clearly documented and communicated to all stakeholders. Compliance with documentation should be regularly audited.
- Preventing the development of conflict should be an integral part of any communication with patients, their families or other involved staff.
- Strategies for resolving conflict should be included in ICU-specific local guidelines on end-of-life care.
- The dying ICU patient’s end-of-life plan should be individually tailored, holistic and documented.
- In all cases, pharmacological treatments for symptom control at the end of life have the sole intention of relieving suffering in the patient dying. Medications should never be administered with the intention of hastening death
- Care of the family and significant others during the dying process and after bereavement is an integral part of intensive care. There should be a multidisciplinary approach with access to post-bereavement supports as required
- The needs of the family of the dying patient and the needs of staff involved in end-of-life care in ICU should be recognised and specifically supported. The need for post-bereavement supports should be considered.
- In all suicides attempts aggressive treatment should be instituted in the emergency situation under the provision of the Mental Health Acts or common law.
- Treatment limitations in conjunction with suicide are reasonable based upon the prognosis, comorbid conditions (including mental illness if present) and a consensus decision about the patient’s best interests. It is important to consult widely about such decisions including, the substitute decision-makers and other health professionals who have known the patient prior to the self-harm.
- Intensivists should remember that the death of a child probably represents the worst moment of most parents’ lives. Be generous with your time, be compassionate and kind, and be sincere.
- Some end-of-life decisions regarding children can be extremely difficult and involve some uncertainty. Intensivists are advised to consider discussing difficult cases with their colleagues, and to seek consensus between the team and family.
- All opportunities for organ and tissue donation should be recognised and appropriately presented to the patient’s family, in accord with the processes and recommendations in the ANZICS Statement on Death and Organ Donation.
- Follow-up of all families whose members die in the ICU and feedback to all ICU staff is an important quality activity.
All of these recommendations are valuable in some sense or another, even though some might appear condescending or superfluous (for example, the intensivist is exhorted to be attentive, sincere, compassionate and kind to the family of the dying child, as if without this advice they would revert to being indifferent, dishonest, rude and pitilessly mean). The problem is, even the short recommendation list is overly long, and totally unsuited for answering Question 13. What follows is an attempt to render this thin broth into a concentrated stock:
The responsibilities of the intensivist in the process of shared decision making at the end of life for the critically ill:
Chapter 6 of the 2014 ANZICS document (p. 76) deals with managing conflict, and appears relevant to the tiny 20% part of Question 13 from the first paper of 2022 which asked the candidates to outline the steps they would take if the patient or their substitute decision-maker disagrees with the consensus opinion of the treating teams that treatment is futile or non-beneficial. Given what is known about the maximum possible handwriting speed of the average human, these steps would have to be outlined in fifty words or less - something most reasonable people would agree is impossible. What follows is much longer (126 words), but answers the question more thoroughly (suggesting that it should have been worth 40% of 50% of the mark):
Myburgh, John, et al. "End-of-life care in the intensive care unit: Report from the Task Force of World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine." Journal of critical care 34 (2016): 125-130.
Palda, Valerie A., et al. "“Futile” care: Do we provide it? Why? A semistructured, Canada-wide survey of intensive care unit doctors and nurses." Journal of critical care 20.3 (2005): 207-213.
Sibbald, Robert, James Downar, and Laura Hawryluck. "Perceptions of “futile care” among caregivers in intensive care units." Canadian Medical Association Journal 177.10 (2007): 1201-1208.
Danbury, C. M., and C. S. Waldmann. "Ethics and law in the intensive care unit." Best Practice & Research Clinical Anaesthesiology 20.4 (2006): 589-603.
Myburgh, John, et al. "End-of-life care in the intensive care unit: Report from the Task Force of World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine." Journal of critical care 34 (2016): 125-130.
Schneiderman, Lawrence J. "Defining medical futility and improving medical care." Journal of bioethical inquiry 8.2 (2011): 123.
Ardagh, Michael. "Futility has no utility in resuscitation medicine." Journal of medical ethics 26.5 (2000): 396-399.
Schneiderman, Lawrence J., Kathy Faber-Langendoen, and Nancy S. Jecker. "Beyond futility to an ethic of care." The American journal of medicine 96.2 (1994): 110-114.
Waisel, David B., and Robert D. Truog. "The cardiopulmonary resuscitation-not-indicated order: futility revisited." Annals of internal medicine 122.4 (1995): 304-308.