ACP Background
Scientific and technological advances in medicine, such as mechanical ventilation, heart and lung bypass machines, pharmaceuticals, and organ transplantation, have led to longer lives or at least medically sustainable longer lives. While many see the benefits of these advances as fundamentally good, not all health care professionals, patients, or family members will agree especially with regard to end-of-life care. Today’s physicians must consider their own knowledge, experience, and skills along with the patient’s desire for autonomy, or self-determination, in medical decision-making (Brown, 2003). Physicians must “perform a balancing act between what is medically and technically possible and what is humane and ethically acceptable” (Simon, 2014, p. 3).