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Comment by advisedwang | Hacker News Reader

This doctor clearly has a vision for how he feels end of life should be, and then implies all (most) doctors share this and non-doctors should follow and doctors should be more vocal about the implied belief.

I'm a bit warey of his assertion that all doctors think the same way as him though. He relies pretty heavily on his experience and a few anecdotes. I wonder if there is any actual data on how doctors view "futile" care and end of life.

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Here’s some actual data:

“Most physicians would forgo aggressive treatment for themselves at the end of life, study finds” https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2014/05/most-physicia...

Take it with a grain of salt just like any self reported study. Their preference may very well change when they become the patient.

Especially with something as heavy as "here's your choice of the last two calendar dates you can expect to be alive"

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” -Mike Tyson

My dad was a physician who always was very clear that he did not want to live in an incapacitated sate. When he had the stroke that killed him, he tried to keep my mom from calling 911 till after he was dead.

Some people are expecting to get punched in the face.

Anyone with this opinion will have DNR orders on file. Their preference is already locked in.

Most of my family are physicians or nurses. They are all of this opinion.

My mom was an ER and ICU RN and NP. She’s to the point where I have a written protocol for when and how I am to call 911 in the event of an emergency for her.

Nobody wants to die, but few who understand want to live in the purgatory between life and death that futile care entails.

It's all ancedotal, but my dad is a doctor and, in talking with him, he agrees with the author and says every other doctor he knows concurs. He is in his 70s and not in the greatest of health (he was in a car accident years ago that seriously led to a decline in his health). He hasn't changed his mind at all as he has gotten older.

As a physician, I think it comes down to circumstance and goals of care. If I was in my forties and had several young children, I'd want everything done to be able to see them again. Even if I knew it was "futile".

This is why palliative care is so important. All of our goals in life are vastly different all the time, even cycling every week.

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