July 2012 Contents

Cardiac resuscitation is unlikely to provide any benefit for a patient with multiple organ failure who will die shortly from those failures. In such a case, do you think it is helpful for physicians to make the "do not resuscitate" decision and allow the patients' surrogates to accept the physicians' judgment without asking for explicit consent from the surrogates?
Yes. Physicians know more about what interventions will be futile and their decision makes the situation less traumatic for the patients' surrogates.
No. This practice ignores the surrogates' right to make decisions for the patient and could be abused to save money and resources.
Don't know.

Do you think that receiving statistical information about the probability of risk is helpful in medical decision making? Select the answer that best describes what you think.
Yes. I would want to receive such information; it helps me to know "the odds."
Sometimes. I would only want to receive such information when there was a wide margin between probability of risk and benefit, e.g., 80 percent survival versus 20 percent mortality.
No. Statistics have no relevance in a specific case, so the information is useless.
No. I would rather have the physician explain in nonstatistical language his or her experience with other patients' outcomes.

Many drugs approved by the FDA are used to treat conditions other than the condition they were approved to treat. This practice is called "off-label use." Do you think patients should be informed and explicitly asked for their consent when a physician intends to use a drug "off label"? Select the answer that best describes what you think.
Yes. Not telling patients ignores their right to give informed consent to treatment.
Yes. If patients had to give consent to off-label use, maybe drug companies would go back and test the drugs for the new uses.
Yes. Patients should not have to pay for a drug that has not been shown in randomized trials to be effective for the specific condition they have.
No. FDA approval means the drug is safe, so a drug that has FDA approval won't do the patient any harm.
No. I trust my physician’s knowledge of pharmaceuticals and experience in using them.