Therapeutic “success

“Just as the notion of therapeutic ‘success’ cannot be defined without regard for people’s underlying preferences and ambitions, deciding what therapeutic course to pursue requires consideration of these same values and goals. When we have thoughtfully asked what, over the span of our lives, would really constitute ‘success,’ we begin to escape the seductive entrapments of wondrous technology, with its monomaniacal focus on the prolongation of life, and start the process of answering how to steer our course through the myriad options that medical care poses. . . . For chronically ill patients, reconsidering what hopes, beliefs, and values underwrite the goals of care – and then reconsidering these goals themselves – can lead to breakthroughs in realizing that certain medical tests or treatments make no sense . . . while other treatment options may be crucial in order to accomplish the clarified goals of, say, enhanced quality of life” (Feudtner, 215, 216-17).