Having seen all four of my grandparents go through their end of life, I came to the conclusion that we treat our pets with more compassion than some of what our elderly (or terminally ill) fellow human beings must endure.

I don’t think every effort should be made, at least not in every case. I don’t think every effort should even be offered in many cases.

I don’t know the exact line for me, but if there’s no reasonable prospect for 3 months of out-of-hospital life, maybe palliative care is the most humane thing. In some cases, active intervention should be able to be requested by the patient (with reasonable oversight).

It’s not primarily for money reasons, but a shocking percentage of healthcare dollars are spent in the last 1 month of patients’ lives. Some of that is intensive care for patients after trauma or other acute incident and that care should continue. But a large part of that is spent on futile efforts, what one surgeon friend of mine called “warm autopsies”.