forgoing of treatment

Medtalk Any nonintervention–eg, withholding and/or withdrawing one or more of the following: CPR, intubation, mechanical ventilation, vasopressors, supplemental O₂, PEEP, blood transfusions, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures–eg, dialysis, and surgical intervention, antibiotics, antiarrhythmics, nutrition, fluids. See Advance directive, Against medical advice, Assisted suicide, DNR, Double effect, Slow code. Cf Watchful waiting.

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treatment

References in periodicals archive ?

The strongest cases of this sort for trumping advance directives will be when both these conditions obtain, with directives requesting either the forgoing of treatment or maximally aggressive treatment.

Trumping advance directives

Medicine's ethical integrity is not necessarily guaranteed simply because a practitioner is willing to carry out the courts' directives regarding the forgoing of treatment. Hitler's deathcamp doctors are, of course, the most obvious example.