The position on the physician’s responsibility for determining when cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can be withheld without consent that is set forth in the article by Downar and colleagues published in CMAJ1 was adopted as Canadian Medical Association policy in 1994 (updated in 1995) in a joint statement with the Canadian Nurses Association and the Catholic Health Association of Canada, with input from the Canadian Bar Association.2 It reads in part, “People who almost certainly will not benefit from CPR are not candidates for CPR, and it should not be presented as a treatment option.” It’s comforting to see instances of law catching up with ethics.
Footnotes
Competing interests: None declared.