Moral Distress Amongst Physician Trainees Regarding Futile Treatments

Excerpt

I was interested to read the qualitative investigation by Dzeng et al. of moral distress in physician trainees due to futile treatments at the end of life, which found that trainees experienced moral distress when they felt obligated to provide treatments at or near the end of life that they perceived as futile.1 Futile care has been defined as “aggressive treatment or interventions such as the use of life support therapy in terminally ill patients who are highly unlikely to survive or have a successful outcome.”2 I suggest that residents may be particularly susceptible to mislabeling treatments as futile due to their disproportionate exposure to inpatient medicine and their limited knowledge base, and I propose a long-term outcome curriculum in order to help trainees cultivate an evidence-based approach to identifying and potentially avoiding futile treatments and the resultant moral distress. …