The Japanese Association for Acute Medicine has adopted conditions under which physicians will be allowed to remove respirators from terminal-stage patients who are diagnosed as brain dead or those patients diagnosed as facing imminent death even if treatment is continued.
The guideline is the first to be authorized by a national association of professionals. Some universities and hospitals have already worked out their own guidelines. The association, which groups about 10,000 doctors and others involved in emergency medicine, adopted the guideline during a meeting Monday in Osaka.
Doctors can now stop treatment if the patients express their wish in writing in advance that they do not want to receive treatment after falling into terminal stage and their families approve such requests, or if the families express a similar desire on behalf of the patients.