When is Life without Value? A Study of Life-Death Decisions on a Hemodialysis Unit

Abstract

In this study of value conflicts in a medical setting both broad, general and “ideal” values as well as practical, everyday, and “real” values are identified and examined within the context of four clinical case studies. The over-arching ideal value is that “life is valuable and preferable to death.” Real values may or may not coincide. In three of the cases the ideal value is challenged and, after some turmoil, is supported. In the fourth case pain is the primary variable leading to abandonment of the ideal value and the insistence on an opposing real value namely that, in this case, death is preferable to life.