Living and dying with medical technology

Medical technology is a two-edged sword, capable of saving and improving life but also of ending and harming life. Finding the right stance toward technology requires great balance and sensitivity. It has seductive powers because of its expected benefits, the social and professional pressures to use it, and a frequent confusion that results from confusing the sanctity and value of human life with a supposed imperative always to use technology. The aim of good critical care medicine should be to establish a meaningful tension, particularly in the care of those patients threatened with death, between the aim of preserving life, on the one hand, and making possible a peaceful death, on the other. Any automatic bias in favor of using technology will threaten that latter possibility.