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Responding to a Non-Imminently Dying Patient's Request for Pacemaker Deactivation
Kelsey Gipe1,2
1Program in Medicine and Human Values, California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Abstract:
Based on Nathan Goldstein's case report, "But I have a pacer…there is no point in engaging in hypothetical scenarios": A Non-imminently Dying Patient's Request for Pacemaker Deactivation, it is reasonable to conclude that it was, all-things-considered, ethically appropriate to grant the patient's request to deactivate her pacemaker. Philosophically, and as a clinical bioethicist, I support the team's decision to honor the patient's request for pacemaker deactivation. However, it is worth exploring a bit further whether the distress on the part of the outside hospital's ethics committee and providers-who declined to honor the patient's request for pacemaker deactivation-may actually track something of moral significance. Might their discomfort around deactivation be "truth-tracking" in moral terms?
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