Christian Worldview Concepts

Feeding Tubes and End-of-Life Decision Making

What is Heroic?

The term "heroic" as it relates to medical treatment is a misnomer. The term relates not to the medical treatment, but to the circumstances in which the treatment is used. There can be unusual circumstances when a technology is used, but circumstances do not change any of the properties of the technology itself. A feeding tube does not somehow become something different in one situation than it is in another. It remains a feeding tube — a flexible hose — whether it is inserted into the abdomen of a surgical patient or an elderly nursing home resident.

Second, and perhaps most important for this discussion, the term "heroic" as used under medical auspices does not imply the same sorts of things as it does when we use it to describe first responders such as policemen, firemen or emergency medical technicians. We give awards, medals and plaques to those "heroes," but when we speak of heroics in the hospital it is usually not a compliment. When someone expresses the desire that no heroics be done, it means that under certain circumstances he or she does not want certain interventions performed, e.g., intubation, resuscitation. The kind of circumstances under which these things are done are what we mean by "heroic," not the technologies used. Thus, a feeding tube itself is never heroic or extraordinary; it is what it is. The circumstances under which a feeding tube is used may be extraordinary, e.g., inserting a feeding tube in a corpse.