When a patient is diagnosed as being brain dead they are both legally and clinically dead. However, their heartbeat and breathing can be continued though life support. This can cause disagreements between the medical physicians and the patient’s relatives. Some might be of the opinion that life support should be terminated because it can be considered inhumane to extend the patient’s lives. While others cling to the hope that they might recover seeing as their vitals are normal and they have a heartbeat, thus wanting to continue life support. This can create a difficult situation where the relatives wish to continue treatments while the physicians want to withdraw. Understandably, the relatives are in a difficult situation where comprehending that there might not be any other solution can be very painful and challenging. This emphasise why good communication between the medical physicians and relatives is crucial. Continuing life support is both time-consuming and expensive for the hospital in terms of medication, medical instruments and staff. When there is a dispute between the wishes of relatives and the medical physicians, who decides if or when life support should be withdraw? …show more content…
Then, the discussion will focus on how to properly handle the relationship between physicians and patient’s relatives and the importance of it. We hold the opinion that treatments of brain dead patient should be terminated eventually, but the most significant thing is to give patient’s relatives a better understanding and accept the concept of “brain death” and provide them appropriate time to accept the situation. Two cases will be mentioned later in order to support our