無效醫療議題之探討

Exploring Medical Futility

儘管科技的進步使重症患者得以延長壽命，但醫療終究有其極限，某些情況下任憑再努力都是徒勞無功的情況時有所見，它使患者承受治療的代價遠大於其助益，因此識別出什麼是無效的醫療，並提供對患者有助益的照護計畫十分重要。我國政策上擬將建立重症病患末期無效醫療的評估及照護標準，但事實上無效醫療的界定十分不易。因此，無效醫療是所有醫療照護者應須了解的重要議題，本文即先闡述無效醫療的生命倫理觀點，並說明無效醫療的定義及其爭議與相關研究，期能增進醫護人員對無效醫療議題的瞭解與重視。

Although able to extend the life of some critical patients, advanced medical technology is limited in terms of scope and extent of effectiveness. Some patients die despite the best efforts of medical teams. Medical futility describes treatments that are both extremely unlikely to benefit a patient and costly to provide. Clearly defining futile treatments and considering this concept in patient care strategies is important to provide quality patient care. Taiwan is currently formulating a policy on medical futility. While accepting that the term ”futile” is used in many different ways and that this term is difficult to define in clinical practice, this article discusses the various ethical views on medical futility and its definition, the debate among these different views, and related research. We hope this article may help medical care staff better understand the importance of medical futility.