But we are using what I feel are the wrong ways to address this. She believes there need to be more questions asked about when or whether to use the new machines and techniques in the first place. When the burden to the total well-being of the patient outweighs the benefit, the treatment becomes senseless. She pointed out that morally, extraordinary means of treatment need not be used in the first place. After all, technolgy doesn't do anything.
Somebody has to turn it on and turn it off.
Here's a common example of how the use of life support technologies can create an ethical dilemma for the families of patients and the physicians who treat them. By the time they get to the hospital the person is on a ventilator, which results in the ethical dilemma of whether to remove life support once it has been initiated. We also need to put in rules that say you may not start something, any technology or treatment, without describing when it is you are going to stop it. Because after all, everything that's done has to be stopped. So you should have just as much attentiveness to the stopping rules as you do the starting rules.