ICU Clinician Perspective on Treatment Level Has Value

Sources: Los Angeles Times, Booster Shots Blog, December 27, 2011; The Atlantic, December 29, 2011; MedPage Today, December 28, 2011 Scott Halpern wrote in his JAMA editorial that, while patient perspectives on intensity of ICU treatment have long been considered, European research on the views of clinicians delivering the care is important to the conversation. As Halpern noted in his editorial, “What this study shows is that a striking number of ICU physicians and nurses on any given day are providing care they perceive to be inappropriate,” and, as he went on to he comment to the media,  “What it doesn’t tell us is why they are doing it,” he said.