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Susan M. Bauman, MD
Medical Society of New Jersey Lawrenceville

JAMA. 1996;276(19):1549.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—The multi-institution collaborative policy on medical utility developed by the Houston Bioethics Network¹ is an impressive achievement given the controversy surrounding this subject. The Medical Society of New Jersey, which represents approximately 9500 physicians, has, through its biomedical ethics committee, been struggling over the past 2 years with this same issue and will soon publish a model policy and procedure for New Jersey physicians and hospitals to use as a guideline.²

Remarkable similarities exist between the 2 policies. Just as our Houston colleagues decided that process is more important than a stringent definition of futility, so too we emphasize communication, negotiation, second opinions, ancillary support persons, and ethics committee review. We believe that futility decisions must result from a shared decisionmaking process between the physician and the patient or the patient's surrogate wherein the physician supplies the objective data about the effectiveness of the proposed . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
Edited by Margaret A. Winker, MD, Senior Editor, and Phil B. Fontanarosa, MD, Senior Editor.

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