Joseph Fins

A thirty-year-old single mother with recurrent, metastatic, treatment-refractory cancer presents to the emergency room with severe difficulty breathing due to an obstructive tumor in her neck, compounded by progressive disease in her lungs and a new pulmonary embolism. She cannot be safely intubated and would require an emergent awake tracheotomy. Even if the airway can be successfully secured surgically, the likelihood that she will be able to be weaned from mechanical ventilation is very low. The surgeon, a young mother too, appreciates the patient's desire for more time with her toddler. But the surgeon knows the significant risk of surgery, the massive responsibility she would accept in trying to get the patient through it, and the emotional toll of an intraoperative death on surgical staff. And she can imagine the second-guessing that will come during the inevitable morbidity and mortality conference if the patient should die in the perioperative window. Yet the surgeon does not want to take the “easy” way out; after all, critically ill patients undergo aggressive resuscitation all the time. What should she do?

Without exaggeration, it could be said that we are entering a golden age of neuroscience. Informed by recent developments in neuroimaging that allow us to peer into the working brain at both a structural and functional level, neuroscientists are beginning to untangle mechanisms of recovery after brain injury and grapple with age-old questions about brain and mind and their correlates neural mechanisms and consciousness. Neuroimaging, coupled with new diagnostic categories and assessment scales are helping us develop a new diagnostic nosology about disorders of consciousness which will likely improve prognostication and suggest therapeutic advances. Historically such diagnostic refinement has yield therapeutic advances in medicine and there is no reason to doubt that this will be the case for disorders of consciousness, perhaps bringing relief to a marginalized population now on the periphery of the therapeutic agenda. In spite of this promise, the translation of research findings into the clinical context will be difficult. As we move from descriptive categories about disorders of consciousness, like the vegetative or minimally conscious states, to ones further specified by integrating behavioral and neuroimaging findings, humility not hubris should be the virtue that guides the ethical conduct of research and practice.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) provides continuous circulation and/or oxygenation to adults with cardiac failure, pulmonary dysfunction, or both. The technology is similar to the traditional heart-lung bypass machines used during surgical procedures, however ECMO may be used outside the confines of the operating room and for extended periods of time. This paper explores the complexities, both clinical and ethical, of a donot-resuscitate (DNR) order for patients with cardiopulmonary failure on veno-arterial (VA-ECMO), a type of ECMO that provides resuscitation superior to the chest compressions that DNR is intended to prevent. Clinically, a DNR order has limited utility for patients on VA-ECMO and its presence can serve to create confusion. Symbolically, however, the designation may serve as a stepping-stone for surrogates facing difficult end-of-life decisions. The paper concludes by suggesting that it is prudent to avoid DNR discussions in the context of VA-ECMO.

When addressing cultural and religious differences in the clinical setting we need to be realists. Despite our public homage to pluralism and good intentions, it is just not possible to overcome all the differences that might exist and achieve perfect understanding of others. Try as we may, we will never be able to see perfectly the world through another's eyes. Instead of reaching for such perfection, we should instead reach for an approximation of shared understanding that will promote discourse and civility when peoples of different races, genders, cultures, religions, and sexual preferences interact in the clinic

What's not to like about shared decision‐making? These programs employ specially crafted decision aids to educate patients about their treatment options and then merge the newly informed patient preferences, both general and treatment‐specific, with guidance from physicians to optimize medical decisions. Sounds great, right? Even better, recent evidence indicates that shared decision‐making programs may also help bend the proverbial cost curve by reducing the use of medical interventions that patients, now properly educated about their options, often say they do not want. The notion that programs to inform and elicit patient choice might also help to align health care delivery with patient preferences for less invasive and therefore less costly treatment options seems the rarest of mutual wins in health care, in which what is best for the individual might also benefit the whole. Yet there has been scant attention to how the goals of patient care and cost‐containment, and perhaps even profitability, coincide or conflict.

Let’s face it, the humanities are in trouble. Last year, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Thomas H. Benton warned prospective graduate students to avoid doctoral studies in the humanities. His rationale: a job market down 40%, the improbability of tenure, the more certain prospect of life as an adjunct, and eventual outright exile from one’s chosen field. Benton, the pen name of William Pannapacker, an associate professor of English at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, pulled no punches. His piece was entitled, “Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go.”