Literature Review

End-of-life care needs cultural humility and social justice BMJ; by Jamilla Akhter Hussain, Rekha Vijayshankar, and Mary Hodgson; 12/18/25 Death, dying, and grief are not medical events—they are profoundly social, relational, and shaped by the histories people carry into their final days. ... [A] key question is: how can end-of-life care services become more trustworthy? Too often, institutions respond with so-called cultural competency initiatives. ... What is needed is cultural humility and social justice. Cultural humility involves ongoing self-reflection and acknowledgement of bias at individual, organisational, and system levels. Palliative care must prioritise cultural humility and social justice: trust grows not through outreach alone but through shared creation of knowledge, meaning, and care—and at the end of life ...

MAID: Medical Aid in Dying - Should Medical Aid in Dying be legal? Britannica; by The Editors of ProCon; 12/16/25

Gov. Hochul reaches agreement with NY Legislature to pass Medical Aid in Dying Act NBC News 10, Rochester/Albany, NY; by Evan Bourtis; 12/17/25 Gov. Kathy Hochul has reached an agreement with the New York State Legislature to allow medical aid in dying for terminally ill people. ... Hochul announced the agreement and published an op-ed in the Times Union on Wednesday. In the op-ed, Hochul said she proposed changes to the bill’s language, which sponsors and legislative leaders have agreed to include. She said she’ll sign the bill once the legislature returns to Albany. You can read the op-ed here. ...  Hochul wanted more protections in the bill’s language. Here is the updated list of safeguards in the bill: ...

Palliative and end of life care: CEJA reports American Medical Association (AMA); updated 12/15/25 Reports by the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) interpret the AMA Principles of Medical Ethics to provide practical ethics guidance on timely topics. When the AMA House of Delegates adopts the recommendations of a CEJA report they become Opinions in the Code of Medical Ethics. The body of the report, which sets out CEJA’s ethics analysis, is archived and remains available as a resource to help users apply guidance. [Go to the original AMA source to access its CEJA reports:]

The hard questions behind medically assisted suicide PJ Media; by David Manney; 12/13/25 Before we start, I need you to know that I'm not advocating for medically assisted suicide (MAS). I do believe that I grasp why some people, in rare and specific circumstances, view it as a deeply personal choice. That belief comes not from emotion, but from watching the hardest years of suffering and listening to families stare at a future without mercy. As more states pass laws, including Illinois, which recently became the twelfth state to legalize medical aid in dying for terminally ill patients with strict criteria, the debate has grown far beyond politics, and into the core of how we treat the most vulnerable among us. ...Editor's Note: In the enacted Illinois statute known as “Deb’s Law,” the formal statutory term is neither “medical aid in dying” nor “medically assisted suicide,” but “aid‑in‑dying medication,” within the “End‑of‑Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act.” 

'Get out of my house': 84-year-old man shoots son in the face for not visiting mother in hospice care, police say Law & Crime, Palm Bay, FL; by Conrad Hoyt; 12/12/25 An elderly man is accused of shooting his son in the face because he and his spouse did not visit the older man's wife over the weekend while she was in at-home hospice care. William Nowak, 84, has been charged with attempted murder, according to an arrest affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime. Nowak was at his home ... in Palm Bay, Florida, where he lived with his wife and their disabled daughter. His wife had recently been put on in-home hospice care, "and William has been taking care of both of them," ... The defendant's son and his wife came over to the house to visit, something she said they did "on a weekly basis." After they arrived around 6 p.m., "William began to express how he was upset they did not visit over the weekend." According to authorities, an argument between the father and son ensued.

Managing competing interests between appointed surrogates and extended family in end-of-life care available to purchaseAmerican Academy of Pediatrics; by Derek R. Soled, Elizabeth Lanphier, Ianthe R.M. Schepel, Maya Scott; 11/25This Ethics Rounds article brings together perspectives from a clinical ethicist, 2 resident physicians in pediatrics, and a social worker on a case involving a terminally ill, intubated, and sedated young adult patient whose health care proxy, extended family, and health care team disagree on the course of her care. Although the proxy, the patient’s adult sister, seems to agree in principle with the health care team’s recommendation to withdraw life-sustaining treatment, she is unwilling to consent to withdrawal due to perceived pressure from her extended family. From an ethics perspective, we discuss the concept of the “marginalized decision-maker” and how to blend the “best interests” approach from pediatric medicine with the “substituted judgment” standard applied in adult medicine when making decisions for incapacitated young adult patients. From a clinical perspective, we explore features of this case that may contribute to feelings of moral distress within the medical team, identify best practices for leading team and family meetings to avoid values imposition and promote shared decision-making, and argue for the importance of training physicians in clinical ethics and reflective skills to improve the quality of patient care and reduce experiences of moral distress in the workplace. Finally, we explore the role that family dynamics, families’ culture and values, and past experiences in the health care system can play in shared decision-making conversations.

AI ‘griefbots’ resurrect dead loved ones — healthy or harmful? Medscape; by Maya Ordonez; 12/5/25 Justin Harrison’s mother passed away in 2022, but he still speaks with her every week. While his mother was still alive, Harrison recreated her virtually using generative artificial intelligence (AI) trained on videos, audio recordings, text messages, and basic information about her. This virtual persona, or “versona,” interacts with him and speaks much in the same way his mother did. He calls her after small wins, such as running a mile, or difficult times, such as when he’s sick. ... Editor's Note: Griefbots may offer comfort, yet they raise deep ethical concerns. These AI recreations are not our loved ones but rather are algorithmic replicas shaped by incomplete data. They make assumptions. They risk distorting what was real, blurring death’s finality, and commercializing our most vulnerable moments. As guardians of grief care and human dignity, we must ask: In using AI to “resurrect” the dead, do we honor memory or jeopardize it? First, do no harm. As this technology expands, we must protect the dignity of the deceased and the integrity of the bereaved. 

Why reflexivity matters in the literature of suffering, death, and dying in eating disordersJournal of Eating Disorders; by Scout Silverstein; 10/25Current debates on medical aid in dying and treatment futility in longstanding eating disorders emphasize diagnostic frameworks, ethical principles, and legal statutes. What remains underexamined is how an author's own experiences with suffering, death, and dying shape their perspective and conclusions. I argue that every manuscript on end-of-life care, decision-making capacity, or futility in eating disorders should include a reflexivity statement detailing the author's relationship to mortality. By mandating reflexivity disclosures alongside ethics and funding statements, journals can enhance transparency and allow readers to contextualize empirical claims and ethical positions. I propose a template for a reflexivity paragraph in which authors succinctly state their clinical or research focus, experiences with suffering, and forces that shape their views on suffering, futility, and dying.

New Jersey organ procurement organization under congressional investigation after ‘alarming’ whistleblower claimsCNN; by Jen Christensen; Story by Jen Christensen, 11/24/25 The US House Ways and Means Committee said Wednesday that it is investigating the organ procurement organization for the New Jersey region for what it called “extreme abuse of public trust” and possible illegal activity, including trying to procure organs from people who didn’t volunteer to be donors and, in at least one case, trying to continue with the organ recovery process in a patient who had “reanimated.”

Ophthalmology considerations in end-of-life careCureus; by Mendel Shloush, Akiva Eleff, Eric Eleff; 10/25Ophthalmologic interventions can significantly impact quality of life, even in the context of end-of-life care. This paper explores the ethical and clinical considerations for ophthalmologic treatments in hospice care, with a focus on cataract surgery, age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) therapy, retinal detachment (RD) repair, glaucoma, painful blind eye (PBE) management, benign and surface ocular tumors, and corneal or anterior segment diseases. Ophthalmologic procedures should be considered viable options in end-of-life care when clinically indicated, with careful ethical review. Restoration of vision contributes meaningfully to the quality of life and deserves thoughtful inclusion in care planning.Assistant Editor's note: When a patient is terminally ill on hospice, we focus on the Big-Bad illness-the one likely to cause death. But often patients suffer from other illnesses as well. For example, when my 95-year-old mom was dying from colon cancer and on hospice, she developed a severe corneal abrasion from an inwardly turned eyelid; a comorbid condition that she had endured for many years called entropion. In this case her inwardly turned eyelashes scraped open her cornea. She was in excruciating pain from her eye. Certainly, this condition was unrelated to colon cancer. But her hospice treated her as a whole person, knowing that her eye pain was contributing to her overall suffering. To their credit, the hospice admitted her to their in-patient hospice house for GIP intervention and care. They had to sedate her deeply for several days until the abrasion began to heal. She was then able to go back home and live comfortably until her death from cancer. There is great variability in what hospices consider "related conditions" and what they believe they are responsible for in terms of payment and treatment. In this case, my mom and us family members experienced only gratitude for the holistic and expert hospice care my mom received.