Advances in Palliative Medicine 2008, tom 7, nr 3

Today we present you with the special issue of Advances in Palliative Medicine. It is mostly based on the materials regarding the conference: “The Limits of Medical Therapy”, organised by the Human Ecology and Bioethics Center, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw and Chair of Palliative Care, Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. The conference, which will take place on October 22, 2008, is an effect of over a year of efforts of experts working as part of the Polish Working Group on End-of-Life Ethics...

The aim of our study was to assess how relatives remember the dying of lung cancer patients several years after their death. The family members of 45 non small-cell lung cancer patients who died up to 7 years after radical surgical treatment were telephoned and asked to meet the research team. Only 20 of them agreed to talk about the dying and death of their relatives; for the rest the issue was still too painful....

On 29.06.2008 the Working Group on End-of-Life Ethics, operating within the scope of the project “The Limits of Medical Therapy”, obtained consensus on the definition of Overzealous Therapy: Overzealous therapy is the application of medical procedures with the goal of supporting vital functions in a terminally ill person that results in prolonged dying, and is associated with excessive suffering and/or with violation of the patient's dignity...

Palliative care was for a long time connected with oncology and entire competence concerned the measures of treating symptoms relating to cancer. The most frequent symptoms of congestive heart failure resemble the symptoms in patients diagnosed with cancer and AIDS...

When, in 1963, J.M. Hinton published his article on the suffering that accompanies dying, by no means did he confine his observation to patients who suffered from oncological conditions. Quite the contrary, as in his essay we can find an explicit statement which says that the suffering of patients dying from cardiac or renal insufficiency is even greater than for patients in the terminal stages of cancer [1]...

The palliative and hospice care in Poland is offered mostly to patients with cancer in its terminal stages. According to the modern definition of palliative care, it should include patients with other chronic and advanced diseases. The goal of the study was to evaluate the knowledge and awareness in Polish nephrology specialists, concerning the problems of palliative care in patients with chronic renal failure...

The essential feature of the statements made by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, concerning ethical issues of futile therapy is the constant reference to the value of life, interpreted as a gift and mission. Recognising the autonomy of the patient to decide on the scope of therapeutic actions in view of approaching death, is limited in the situation where medical personnel are required to perform or abandon actions of a strictly suicidal character...

The discussion on the right of the patient to "die with dignity" has been going on in the USA and Europe for 30 years. It focuses mostly on the following questions: 1. What is "death in dignity"?; 2. Is man entitled to die in dignity, and if so, on what basis? 3. In what manner should we realise the right to die in dignity?..

The issues of the ethical evaluation of withholding or withdrawing of medical treatment have been the subject of discussions among doctors, lawmakers, philosophers and theologians for centuries...

The terminal stages or terminal periods are a period of transition, described by Van Gennop as “the autonomy of the borderline”. The borderline between life and death is dying, when the game is performed on two stages simultaneously. One of these games is the struggle of the patient with themselves, while the other is a game between the patient and his or her environment (family, health care professionals)...