Citation

Satkoske VB, Kappel DA, DeVita MA. Crit. Care Clin. 2019; 35(4): 717-725.

Affiliation

Harlem Hospital, 506 Lenox Avenue New, New York, NY 10037, USA. Electronic address: michael.devita@nychhc.org.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ccc.2019.06.006

PMID

31445616

Abstract

Emergency and critical care medicine are fraught with ethically challenging decision making for clinicians, patients, and families. Time and resource constraints, decisional-impaired patients, and emotionally overwhelmed family members make obtaining informed consent, discussing withholding or withdrawing of life-sustaining treatments, and respecting patient values and preferences difficult. When illness or trauma is secondary to disaster, ethical considerations increase and change based on number of casualties, type of disaster, and anticipated life cycle of the crisis. This article considers the ethical issues that arise when health providers are confronted with the challenges of caring for victims of disaster.

Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Critical care medicine; Disaster ethics; Disaster medicine; Emergency medicine; Informed consent; Life-sustaining treatment