'Doctor, Don't Give Up on Me!'

Conclusion

In many cases, patients don't recover as completely as George Pickering's son, but they still deserve to be protected, says Stephen Drake, the researcher with Not Dead Yet. For example, he says, elderly patients like Kathleen Finlay's mother could live many years longer if they can get the full care they need.

But Drake says that it can be difficult to get the full care needed when discussions about healthcare for elderly patients use terms like "end-of-life" care, which is all too common. "It's a self-fulfilling term," he says. "'End-of-life' is already telling you what the decision ought to be."

Medscape Business of Medicine © 2016  WebMD, LLC

Any views expressed above are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of WebMD or Medscape.

Cite this: Leigh Page. 'Doctor, Don't Give Up on Me!' - Medscape - Mar 16, 2016.