Not intervening as a form of care: Negotiating medical practices at the end-of-life

Not intervening as a form of care: Negotiating medical practices at the end-of-life 
AnthroSource, by the American Anthropological Association; by Simon Cohn, Eric Borgstrom, and Annelieke Driessen; 8/27/24 
... The story of Keith, a patient living with multiple sclerosis but now with limited time left, introduces a common feature of biomedicine; once set on a particular trajectory, clinicians are often committed to a cascade of options without really questioning their ultimate value: "When I saw the doctor, the first thing he said was, ‘Oh, we can do this, or we can do that…’ So I said, ‘No, you won't. You won't do any of those things, thank you very much.’ And then when he suggested a drug that will give me ‘an extra few months’, I replied ‘Does that give me an extra few months now, or an extra few months at the end? Because I want the few months now, I don't want them at the end.’" Here, Keith recounts how his doctor seemed compelled to suggest one treatment after another with the intention of prolonging his life, rather than acknowledge that because he was dying, a different approach might be more appropriate. ...