Ethical issues in resuscitation and intensive care medicine

Critical care medicine involves resolving a number of interlinking ethical issues. These include consent, organ donation and end-of-life issues. The legal status of advance directives or ‘living will’ is changing and is now becoming part of UK law for the first time. End-of-life issues continue to cause clinicians concern. In this article various aspects of withholding or withdrawing treatment as well as the use of opioids at the end of life are discussed. References to recent pertinent legal cases are given to illustrate the issues covered.