What changes an ICU doctors intention to discuss withdrawal of life support in a family meeting? An interesting study published this month argues that a doctors willingness to discuss withdrawal of life support depends on how sick the patient is, but not necessarily what the patient’s values are in regards to functional recovery. Interestingly, it also depends on whether doctors are required to record the patient’s most likely 3-month functional outcome before deciding whether to discuss withdrawal of life support. The Study The study, by Alison Turnbull (who also on twitter @vitaincerta ) and colleagues, was a three-armed randomized control trial of 630 academic intensivists recruited via e-mail invitation. Each of these intensivists reviewed a single hypothetical patient across 10 different scenarios representing a wide range of illness severities that changed the probability of in-hospital mortality (all of which included that the patient was mechanically ventila