be attempted. This 'Samaritan principle' deserves to stand beside the 'Asklepian principle' of expertise in its importance for medical culture. It might be argued that doctors by definition should treat patients, and never abandon this endeavor; that it is built into the very concept that doctors should exercise at all times the ethical virtue of beneficence. Thus, two broad traditions have flowed through western medicine, expertise and compassion. Hence, we have some explanation as to why doctors, carry on futile treatment of the hopelessly ill (Orr, 1992). When life-sustaining treatment is withdrawn, whether on the ground of medical futility or patient autonomy, there can be internal conflict concerning the patient??s death. This conflict stems from the belief of causing the patient??s death or merely allowing the patient to die. In the typical scenario of a ventilator patient in a permanent vegetative state, the patient is alive until the ventilator is removed, and then the patient soon dies. The proximity of the patient??s death to the removal of the ventilator leads some physicians to consider wonder whether they have indeed caused the patient??s death. In the case where the ventilator is never used in the permanent vegetative patient, death is not caused by the physician but is instead the result of the patient??s disease process. Many physicians therefore are more comfortable with not starting treatment than with withdrawing it (Walker, 2011). Doctors sometimes continue futile treatment because they are afraid of the legal consequences of not doing so. Lawyers may wish