When to Pull the Plug

Is there another subject that is both more complex and deeply personal than medical ethics?

Seven years ago this subject came up in a conversation with World Business Academy Founder and President, Rinaldo Brutoco. In the dictionary next to the world 'polymath' there should be a picture of Rinaldo.

Rinaldo and I were going over a speaking circuit checklist, discussing the subjects he felt qualified to lecture on. It was a long, diversified list, and he confidently checked every box except one: medical ethics.

Realizing that this was a topic that not only stumped Rinaldo, but also left him uncomfortable or unable to defer to another expert, I promptly tabled further contemplation of the subject. For me, the topic reemerged during the recent health care reform debate when rumors of  "death panels" began circulating about.

Below is a preview from the highly regarded PBS program Frontline, which will be profiling medical ethics in an upcoming program.

Watch Facing Death on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Here is the press release from the show:

"How far would you go to sustain the life of someone you love, or your own? When the moment comes, and you’re confronted with the prospect of “pulling the plug,” do you know how you’ll respond? Unfounded rumors of federal “death panels” grabbed headlines last summer, but the real decisions of how we die -- the questions that most of us prefer to put off -- are being made quietly behind closed doors, increasingly on the floors of America’s intensive care units. In this film, FRONTLINE gains access to the ICU of one of New York's biggest hospitals to examine the complicated reality of today’s modern, medicalized death. Here we find doctors and nurses struggling to guide families through the maze of end-of-life choices they now confront: whether to pull feeding and breathing tubes, when to perform expensive surgeries and therapies or to call for hospice. The film also offers an unusually intimate portrait of patients facing the prospect of dying in ways that they might never have wanted or imagined."

Venturing into a discussion of medical ethics often becomes deeply emotional. Perhaps there is no better illustration of the gap between the intellectual disciplines, such as economics, medicine and philosophy, which have attempted to provide insights into medical ethics, and our humanity.