Between Medical Persistence and Medical Futility? On the Usefulness of the Concept of Persistent Therapy in the Ethics of the Treatment of Terminally Ill Patients
Ks. Marcin FERDYNUS
Department of Ethics, Institute of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland , Polandhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-0176-1023
Abstract
The author contends the thesis put forward by Kazimierz Szewczyk, who claims that the term “persistent therapy” and the definition of persistent therapy should be abandoned in Polish bioethical and medical regulations. The analyses conducted in the paper show that the arguments Szewczyk uses are not strong enough to be valid. There is a place for the concept of medical futility as well as for that of persistent therapy in Polish literature. Both categories can be helpful as long as they maintain an adequate methodological perspective. Medical futility should be limited to medical facts only and defined as an intervention which cannot achieve its intended physiological goal. Persistent therapy should in turn be defined as the application of extraordinary medical procedures for the purpose of sustaining the life of a terminally ill patient.
Keywords:
persistent therapy, medical futility, terminally ill patient, end-of-life ethicsDepartment of Ethics, Institute of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0176-1023
