Study finds many doctors disregard wishes of cancer patients. Frequently, patients with advanced cancer simply want to be made as comfortable as possible as they wind down their final days. Many of these patients are receiving treatment focused on extending their lives rather than easing their pain.

[u/mvea]

https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2025/08/26/cancer-patients-treatment-wishes-study/7921756217134/

[u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

I wonder how much the patients families play into that decision too. I know sooo many people who have felt like doctors didn’t do ‘enough’ to keep their loved ones alive. And then the lawsuits start. I think most doctors would like to provide their patients with compassionate, comfortable treatment options but fear the repercussions. I hope one day we get to a place, at least in the US, where we aren’t so consistently and vicious fighting against natural death.

[u/unwisest_sage → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

Went through this with my wife's family and their 95 year old grandma last year. They just always felt like they medical teams weren't doing enough. But the reality is her body was so old and dilapidated that so many systems were starting to fail, and you treat one system and it just screws up another. Eventually the body is held together by shoe strings and rubber bands.

They couldn't accept she was going to pass. Like medicine is just this perfect science that should be fixing you 100 percent of the time and you should live to 150. A woman who hasn't been able to walk for 15 years. Sometimes after the funeral I heard rumors of attempting a lawsuit but that finally died down. They spent so much energy angry at doctors.

It was hard for me to sit on the sidelines through all that.

[u/Medarco → u/unwisest_sage]

I work in a hospital in an aging community, and we see this a ton. After enough experience with patients, you start to get a pretty good feeling of who is on their way out. I've personally witnessed over a dozen deaths in front of my eyes, and watched idk how many discharge to hospice.

But most families don't have that same experience, thankfully. Their world is shattering right in front of them, and they feel powerless. As heartless as it sounds, to us, it's just a Tuesday...

So many families demanding transfers to higher levels of care, and we're telling them the patient may not even survive the ambulance ride. No, antibiotics aren't going to matter much, meemaw has cancer and her lungs are full of tumors. Sure we can treat the pneumonia, but you need to be thinking about end of life care. Yes, there is a surgery for his heart, but papaw is 96 with ESRD and dementia, you're literally just forcing him into a momentarily prolonged tortured existence for your own ignorant conscience.

It's really really painful, and it's very easy to become jaded and burnt out.

[u/SubjectInevitable650 → u/Medarco]

Why do people feel shattering world with 95 year old grandma dying? Everyone dies, in US median women age is 82 (unverified). So a lot of old people are already over median age.

I guess they are too attached and not thinking logically. But suing doctors or hospitals ... how illogical can you be?

[u/Dennis_McMennis → u/SubjectInevitable650]

Why do people feel shattering world with 95 year old grandma dying?

Because someone being old doesn’t mean you love them less. Yes, everyone dies. That does not make it easy.

[u/SubjectInevitable650 → u/Dennis_McMennis]

Agreed. I am not saying family cannot grieve. My point is saying a 95 year old died is doctor's or hospital's fault is going overboard.

[u/transemacabre → u/unwisest_sage]

It's guilt. Look up 'Daughter from California', it's guilt from the family members who feel they didn't do enough and need to place those feelings on someone else.

[u/ycaivrp → u/unwisest_sage]

I wish I am a magician who can fix a 95 year old body

[u/SitInCorner_Yo2 → u/unwisest_sage]

That’s why my grandfather got a DNR, he saw his friend who lost control of most his body after a medical emergency, his life is saved but the quality is gone, he said that’s not living, it has no dignity and full of pain .

Grandpa died few months ago,similar situation as your in-laws family, his immune system basically collapsed and everything else went down with it.

[u/NakedJaked → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

Sometime you can go gentle into that good night.

[u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy → u/NakedJaked]

Yes. One of my best friend’s father in law was diagnosed with ALS maybe 2 years ago. After about a year, he told the family that he planned to go to a ‘compassionate Care’ clinic in Vermont that offered medically assisted s*icide. He worked in healthcare so he knew what the prognosis was. He wanted to spend his last remaining months and days seeing his family and friend before he left. When he finally did decide it was time, his family said it was how they wish they go one day. Calm, surrounded by family, on their own terms. I thought that was so brave and beautiful.

[u/upgrayedd69 → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

You can say suicide, you won’t get in trouble I promise

[u/OhEmGeeBasedGod → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

I mean, of all the diseases out there, ALS is the one to seek out this type of care. It's literally the worst, you will suffer horrendously, your family will suffer horrendously, and there's no way a cure is going to sprout up in the time between one's diagnosis and them dying because it happens so relatively fast. My dad is a doctor (not in this specialty) and I've heard him say unprompted multiple times that ALS is the worst way to die.

[u/InsertANameHeree → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

s*icide

God, I hate this new TikTok trend.

[u/Granite_0681 → u/InsertANameHeree]

It’s not a TikTok trend. It’s to not get flagged by bots and censors. On Reddit if you write out that word you automatically get a bot response with a help line. If you do it too much, your account gets flagged. There is a reason for it but in cases like this, the poster doesn’t need help, they are talking about it neutrally so it’s easier to not use the exact word.

[u/hardolaf → u/Granite_0681]

Reddit does not automatically send those notices nor do they flag you for using the word "suicide". All of those reports and flags are from user reports.

[u/InsertANameHeree → u/Granite_0681]

I'll try it and report back with the results.

Suicide.

EDIT: Nope, nothing.

[u/Granite_0681 → u/InsertANameHeree]

It might depend on subreddit. I’ve definitely seen it happen frequently in some subs. Usually more ones where emotional topics are common.

[u/DoctorGregoryFart → u/Granite_0681]

If it has happened, it was because someone reported you.

[u/kelskelsea → u/Granite_0681]

It’s 100% a TikTok trend. Reddit does not automatically flag you and, even if they did, people are smart enough to add “s*icide” to the filters.

All you do is make it harder for people to filter out content distressing to them and normalize the trend of infantilizing language to avoid imaginary censorship.

[u/MMMH0TCHEEZE → u/NakedJaked]

Not in the US. Assisted suicide is illegal in every state for people that are not already in the process of dying. It's pathetic.

[u/sum_dude44 → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

as a Dr I promise you it's the family/POA 95% of time. I get hospice patients sent daily to ER whose families want us to "do something" to patients who are actively dying, including sometimes even CPR & intubation

[u/helga-h → u/sum_dude44]

When the doctor said that they would not give my mother fluids or nutrients I panicked because I was thinking my mom was slowly going to starve to death over the following weeks, so I totally get the people who want to save their loved ones by doing anything.

They explained to me that food would not change anything but the number of days it would take her to die. It would not make her comfortable, she would not feel better and she would not wake up for more than a few painful minutes at a time. She would just be balancing at death's door indefinitely.

That conversation took place 5 hours before my mother died.

[u/stoneandfern → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

My mom has worked in an ICU for 40+ years. She has seen a lot of death. She has had families ask for brain transplants. She has people demanding CPR forever on 85+ year olds. Grief is wild.

[u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy → u/stoneandfern]

Yeah seriously! The weird thing about death and dying is that it’s usually more about the people around the terminally ill person and not the actual person who is sick.

[u/PM_ME_SAD_STUFF_PLZ → u/stoneandfern]

The Pitt has a great subplot involving this. I think they did a great job showing the heartbreak and grief family can go through and how it manifests as selfishness.

[u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

Sounds like the so-called "Daughter from California", insisting that everything be done no matter what the patient actually wants.

[u/sionnach → u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS]

I was just about to comment this. It happens all the time. I’ve seen it in my family twice, and I think a third time brewing where my dad needs an easy path for the next while.

[u/woolfonmynoggin → u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS]

I mean sometimes it’s the wife who’s been with them for years and just wants more time over their spouse’s comfort. It really is anybody in the family

[u/ZuFFuLuZ → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

Paramedic here, it's both sides. Family members don't think clearly in these situations (understandably) and most have never thought about what to do when it inevitably happens. So they are taken by surprise and act on feelings alone.
On the other side, everybody in healthcare gets drilled into their heads to keep the patients alive no matter what. Keep them alive and ask questions later or better yet: don't ask questions at all. We value life over everything else.
It's really hard to get out of that mindset and it's of course a huge legal liability. Everybody constantly fears lawsuits, so of course we follow the law to the letter. It's for our own protection. It doesn't matter if it's morally correct.

I predict that this will only change when it becomes an even larger economic problem than it already is. End of life situations are insanely expensive for the insurance companies and it gets more and more expensive every single year. It's often more than all the healthcare costs of the entire earlier life combined. At some point we won't be able to pay for this maximum treatment anymore and that's when we will see change. Out of necessity, not because of ethics/morals. This world runs on money.

[u/flakemasterflake → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

I can't believe the headline is putting this on doctors when it's always the families pushing for more until the very last minute

[u/Fine_Measurement_338 → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

My aunt was 95 when she was diagnosed with cancer of …everything I think. Just kind of generally cancer all over. She wasn’t having symptoms that exceeded what a 95 year old woman would have. She declined treatment. For some reason one of her sons became enraged. It was weeks of him calling everyone demanding we support him in making her receive care.

She lived until 102 without much physical deterioration. An uncle had a similar diagnosis at 87, received treatment, and died in hospice of constipation within a year.

Looking at all my father’s family, they get into their 90s, get cancer somewhere/everywhere, and fade away around 100…as long as they avoid medical interventions.

[u/Calamity-Gin → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

Which means it’s time for my little PSA: whatever you want the end of your life to look like, go to a lawyer and have your will, medical power of attorney, and DNR written to support that. Choose the person you know will stand up for you through hell, high water, distraught relatives, and priggish medical staff to hold your medical power of attorney. Then, sit your loved ones down and tell them what you want.

My mom did exactly that when she was still in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and it saved so much heartache and pain for us. She named me as her power of medical attorney, and she made it absolutely clear to my brothers and me that she was not to be out in a ventilator for anything. She worked for 45 years as a nurse in med-surg, OB/gyn, and ER, and she saw a lot of death. The worst ones, for her, were the ones where the family demanded the doctors do everything to extend life.

She had a hemorrhagic stroke and over the course of several days, her condition slowly worsened. I came in the morning of the fifth day to find they’d put her in a ventilator in the middle of the night, because they couldn’t get ahold of me. I consulted my brothers. They both assured me that they would support my decision no matter what it was.  I said two magic sentences to the neurologist: “you are outside the scope of care permitted by her DNR. Bring hospice in.” 

The neurologist said it would take her weeks to die. The hospice nurse said it would take twenty minutes. Mom took six grueling hours to pass, and the hospice nurse gave her all the meds to make her comfortable. My older brother and I sat with her the entire time. It was awful and traumatic, and very much better than if we’d let them keep her on the ventilator. Thanks to my mom’s foresight, she wasn’t kept hooked up to machines for weeks or months on end. I am so grateful to her for laying out what she wanted clearly and definitively.

[u/real_picklejuice → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

I had something like this happen when a relative suffered an aneurysm. The team, and my family, was pushed heavily on how well she would recover, so we opted to do what was necessary to extend her life.

She obviously never recovered and spent her last 12 years as a shell of her former self in a chair. Barely spoke, rarely recognized her children, couldn't comprehend that her own mother had died; just no dignity and a lot of pain.

Everyone in my family made a pact that it will never happen again if something similar falls on us.

[u/firstfrontiers → u/real_picklejuice]

I've seen this many times where there's this "window" so to speak especially with brain injuries where life support is required for a while initially and then the patient stabilizes, perhaps gets a trach/feeding tube or even stabilizes off all support. Unfortunately you can never say with 100% certainty what the recovery will look like although doctors with their years of training will generally know a "best/worst/most likely" kind of outlook. So the general recommendation if you want hope of recovery is that it will take several months for the true new "baseline" to emerge and declare itself.

It sounds cruel but I feel like you only have this short initial window where you can withdraw or withhold life support and allow the patient to pass naturally before they stabilize to a chronic, probably bad new baseline.

The way I've described it to my husband is I want a "most likely" or >50% chance of a good/decent neurologic recovery in order to keep me on life support if that happens to me. I don't want a 10% chance. Everyone thinks they'll be the one that falls in the 10% when you'll more likely be the 90% vegetable.

I'm ok with the possibility that I die prematurely and could have possibly been that 10%... I'll be dead so I won't care. But what I would definitely not be ok with is being kept alive to most likely become a nursing home dependent when that could have been prevented up front.

[u/real_picklejuice → u/firstfrontiers]

Thing is, the lead surgeon told us he expected a 65-70% recovery. A lot of us felt like we were mislead by someone who simply wanted to add a notch in his belt.

But there's been a lot more research into brain plasticity in the past decade too, and had I known what I know now, put in the same situation, I would've pushed much harder for physical therapy much earlier.

Getting cognition back is still hit or miss from the research, and dependent on neuro damage, but at least she would've had some use of her left side, instead of completely atrophying.

[u/haw35ome → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

This is why DNRs (Do Not Resuscitate) & power of attorney letters are so important. If I didn’t consent to my parents making medical decisions on my behalf, I possibly wouldn’t be here today. Twice. I have one (the latter) in place now, should it happen again.

Actually, perhaps the hospital staff would have done everything to keep me alive. I believe the “default setting” is to keep the patient alive by all means, until it is 1000% impossible to do - despite patients’ wishes

[u/pmofmalasia → u/haw35ome]

The default is to go with the patient's wishes. If you don't know the patient's wishes, then you assume they want all measures (CPR, intubation, etc) until proven otherwise. If they're DNR you do everything you can up until what they've said they don't want.

[u/[deleted] → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

For me it was the opposite of this post, they wanted go palliative while I was blindly asking for better treatment for my mom.

[u/phoenix25 → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

I’m a paramedic, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run a full resuscitation because family recinded the DNR order.

[u/JuanOnlyJuan → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

If they don't provide the standard of care they open themselves up to negligence lawsuits later. If your wishes are important put them in writing.

[u/TheTeflonDude → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

Exactly this has happened on my hospice ward

[u/womerah → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

Also insurance, costs for palliative care vs """curative""" treatments are not the same. I work in RadOnc and we have a few "curative" plans that are honestly palliative

[u/SitInCorner_Yo2 → u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy]

My grandpa died few months ago, and the legal side of things is what doctors are worried about the most, because the test results were clear he is literally dying but just the matter of when.

He and the head nurse checked with my dad and all his siblings repeatedly that they all knew their father had a DNR and they did sign on that paper as witnesses, and then made them sign another paper stating they agreed to stop all treatment other than easing his pain.

The sigh of relief head nurse had is super clear when all the papers are done , she then straight up tell them based on her experience,grandpa will be gone before her shift is over, she’s correct.