Abstract

Essays and articles in the November‐December 2022 issue of the Hastings Center Report explore the complexities of medical decision‐making. A case‐study essay, for example, argues that the dismaying decision to perform resuscitation efforts on a patient who had obviously been dead for some time can be understood in the context of the harmful practice of defensive medicine. A narrative essay concerns whether an adolescent with locked‐in syndrome should be asked her wishes about life‐sustaining interventions, and the articles illuminate the ethical value of the parental role in pediatric decision‐making, an array of ways in which patient decision‐making is interdependent, and the limitations of measures designed to evaluate the quality of a patient's decision and decision‐making process.