Medical Futility or Persistent Therapy? A Dispute over the Terms and Definitions in the Polish Context

Abstract

This article presents the current discussion around the terms “medical futility” and “persistent therapy” and their definitions. This discussion is based on the dis-pute of whether the term “persistent therapy” should be rejected and replaced with the term “medical futility” in Polish bioethical and medical regulations.The dispute started after the Polish Working Group on End-of-Life Ethics (PWG) had published its definition of persistent therapy in 2008. To settle the dispute, the author proposes amodified version of the PWG’s definition of persistent therapy that combines persis-tence and futility. He argues that persistent therapy is the application of extraordinary or causally inefficacious medical procedures to sustain the life of aterminally ill patient. He also asserts that medical futility can be useful for bioethics only when its definition is limited to medical factors.