Comforting when we cannot heal: the ethics of palliative sedation

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 39 (3):211-220 (2018)
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Abstract

This essay considers whether palliative sedation is or is not appropriate medical care. This requires one to consider whether, in addition to the good of health, relief of suffering is also a proper end of medicine; whether unconsciousness can ever be a good for a human being; and how double-effect reasoning can help us think about difficult cases. The author concludes that palliative sedation may be proper medical care, but only in a limited range of cases.

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Citations of this work

Palliative sedation: clinical context and ethical questions.Farr A. Curlin - 2018 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 39 (3):197-209.
Reckoning with the last enemy.Douglas Farrow - 2018 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 39 (3):181-195.

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References found in this work

The patient as person.Paul Ramsey - 1970 - New Haven,: Yale University Press.

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