Current Controversies in Prehospital Resuscitation of the Terminally Ill Patient

Abstract

Prehospital health-care providers regularly are called upon to assist terminally ill patients in residential or institutional, non-hospital settings such as nursing homes or hospices. Among the most crucial issues regarding such patients is whether they should be resuscitated. With alarming frequency, EMS providers are encountering vigorous and sometimes violent refusals of examination, treatment, and/or transportation from the terminally ill patient, members of the patient's family, or third persons ostensibly acting on the patient's behalf. Today, the prehospital emergency health-care provider repeatedly is faced with the legal and ethical questions that surround the issue of resuscitation and advanced life support.