What are the ethical obligations of physicians when an intervention is clearly futile?

The goal of medicine is to help the sick. Physicians have no obligation to offer treatments that do not benefit their patients. Futile interventions are ill advised because they often increase a patient’s pain and discomfort in the final days and weeks of life, and because they can expend finite medical resources.


The goal of medicine is to help the sick. Physicians have no obligation to offer treatments that do not benefit their patients. Futile interventions are ill advised because they often increase a patient’s pain and discomfort in the final days and weeks of life, and because they can expend finite medical resources.

Although the ethical requirement to respect patient autonomy entitles a patient to choose from among medically acceptable treatment options (or to reject all options), it does not entitle patients to receive whatever treatments they ask for. Instead, the obligations of physicians are limited to offering treatments that are consistent with professional standards of care.