The boundaries of medical futility, however, have never been clear, and it may be too much to expect that they ever will be. It is perhaps for this reason that there has arisen the conviction among doctors—more than a mere conviction, it is nowadays felt by many to be a responsibility—that should error occur in the treatment of a patient, it must always be on the side of doing more rather than less. Doing more is likely to serve the doctor’s needs rather than the patient’s. The very success of his esoteric therapeutics too often leads the physician to believe he can do what is beyond his doing
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