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In a lengthy article this summer, The New York Times featured an innovative program at Montefiore Medical Center that gives bioethicists a central role in mediating end-of-life issues. The story follows the case of Mrs. Adele Haber, whose husband faced the harrowing decision whether to wean his wife of 55 years from a ventilator that was put in place after she suffered a severe heart attack. The heart attack had worsened longstanding breathing problems due to lung cancer and emphysema.
The Montefiore program uses the tools of mediation, which are common in business and divorce but relatively new to medicine, to resolve disputes about care among family members. Nancy Neveloff Dubler, Montefiore's director of bioethics, is quoted as saying that the important thing is to avoid the disputes that can arise from poor communication between the medical team and the family, and to defuse tense situations with straight talk and empathy. Read the full article.
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