Abstract Details

Title End of Life Preferences: Medical Students’ Attitudes Toward Life Support

Topic Neuro Trauma, Critical Care, and Sports Neurology

Presentation(s) P5 - Poster Session 5 (5:30 PM-6:30 PM)

Poster/Presentation
Number 4-052

Objective The purpose of this study is to gauge medical students’ attitudes toward life support and explore how their preferences relate to their demographics and life experiences.

Background It has been suggested that physicians are more likely to decline prolonged life support for themselves in the setting of incurable or debilitating disease. However, little has been published qualifying this notion and even rarer are studies analyzing medical students’ preferences regarding life-sustaining treatment.

Design/Methods A 66-item questionnaire was distributed among medical students during their neurology clerkship at a large U.S. medical school. The questions included demographic and experiential information of the student and preferences for withdrawal of invasive and less-invasive life support, defined as mechanical ventilation, lines, etc. and feedings, fluids, antibiotics/medications respectively.

Results 91 responses were received over a 5-month period. The majority of students favored stopping invasive life support in the setting of dementia with a terminal illness (81%). The majority also favored stopping both invasive and less-invasive life support in the setting of persistent vegetative state (93% and 79%), a painful and incurable disease with life expectancy ≤3 months (77% and 58%), when chance for a full recovery is ≤10% (60% and 58%), and when there is a ≤ 20% chance of being able to understand (59% and 66%) or speak to others (64% and 70%). Few students wanted termination of life support in the setting of a non-painful but incurable disease when life expectancy was ≤24 months (4% and 4%).

Conclusions Recognizing the end-of-life preferences of future physicians may help current healthcare providers in education of advanced directives and end-of-life curriculum. Awareness of the multifaceted nature to withdrawing life support will better physician-patient-family communication and relations. We will present the results of almost 200 surveys and analyze the responses with regards to demographics such as age, ethnicity, religion, etc.

Authors/Disclosures
Charlotte Zhong, DO (University of Southern California, LA County) PRESENTER	No disclosure on file
Peggy Nguyen, MD	Dr. Nguyen has nothing to disclose.
Gene Y. Sung, MD, MPH (U.S.C. Neurology)	The institution of Dr. Sung has received research support from NIH.

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