Deferring Decision-making in the Face of Uncertainty

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This article refers to:

Postponed Withholding: Balanced Decision-Making at the Margins of Viability

This article is referred to by:

Postponed Withholding: An Ethical Tool for Health Care Personnel to Empower Parents

Notes

1 One euphemism that appears in the target article is “redirection to palliative care.” This is a widely used phrase that is designed to make it more palatable or acceptable to discontinue active survival focused therapies and provide comfort focused care. Sensitively and carefully used, euphemisms can be helpful in communicating with families. However, they sometimes obscure, or confuse, (both other professionals and patients) and risk jeopardising informed decision-making (Collins, McLachlan, and Philip 2018; Rawlings et al. 2017).

2 It is possible that those extremely preterm infants who are extubated are, thereby, in a better prognostic group, and thus no longer in the “grey zone.”

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded in part by the Wellcome Trust [203132/Z/16/Z]. The funders had no role in the preparation of this manuscript or the decision to submit for publication.