Speaker: Joseph A. Raho, Ph.D., Clinical Ethicist at the UCLA Health Ethics Center and Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles

Abstract: Continuous sedation is an ethically controversial end-of-life option. Although some clinicians judge it to be consistent with the aims of palliative care, others charge that it constitutes a form of "slow euthanasia" and thus ethically impermissible. This presentation examines the ethics of continuous sedation as a possible last-resort option for patients experiencing refractory end-of-life symptoms. Following a case study, it first distinguishes end-of-life practices from death-hastening interventions and then moves to analyze problematic uses of sedation. Ethical criteria for continuous sedation will be proposed and defended. The presentation will conclude by considering an approach to the ethics of continuous sedations that was developed at the speaker's institution.