The Decision to Perform Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

Decisions to initiate or forgo life-prolonging procedures, such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation, present profound medical and ethical dilemmas for the physician, nurse, patient, family, and society. The physician's self-image as the advocate and protector of the patient under his or her care is challenged when a decision must be made that may compromise the dignity of the patient and prolong the agony of dying. The decision often represents an amalgam of conflicting forces and values and is not always rationally reached.1 In its analysis of decisions to forgo life-sustaining treatment, the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine . . .