Luce "A History of Resolving Conflicts over End-of-Life Care in ICUs in the USA"

In a succinct yet clear six-page article forthcoming in print in Critical Care Medicine, UCSF Medical Professor John Luce provides a nice overview in "A History of Resolving Conflicts over End-of-Life Care in Intensive Care Units in the United States."  

While Luce covers medical practice, he devotes a great deal of his article to a discussion of the law.  While some of it is elementary, Luce actually provides some interesting legal insights.  For example, he observes that at least six futility cases filed in California were dismissed because the plaintiff/patient was unable to secure an expert witness to testify that the defendant physician (who unilaterally stopped LSMT) violated the standard of care.  That legal "signal" (as compared to published appellate opinions, for example) is almost invisible, but is valuable information.  

But Luce is off-base when he predicts that a Massachusetts judge would side with a family in a futility dispute against Boston Children's "given the results of cases like Baby K."  Baby K was decided on a narrow ground, EMTALA, that is almost never applicable in futility cases.  If the patient is in an ICU, she is an inpatient.  Thus, EMTALA is inapplicable, except perhaps in the 6th Circuit (for now). The real reason that a family might probably secure an injunction is because the facts and the law will usually be unclear.  Consequently, the Massachusetts judge would have no choice but to hold the status quo until an opportunity for the submission of additional briefing and evidence.