Advice to Health Care Professionals
To avoid these two extremes, the bishops, although not extending “a definitive pronouncement on every clinical decision (p. 107),” do offer some specific norms for physicians to apply when making clinical decisions.
Life-Sustaining Therapies “Physicians should not impose aggressive life-sustaining therapies on persons for whom such treatments will simply prolong the dying process” (p. 108).
Patients’ and Families’ Wishes “Doctors do wrong who insist on maintaining invasive life support when the patient or his or her family make clear that the burdens of treatment far exceed the benefits” (p. 108).
Frankness about Death “A good Catholic doctor speaks openly about death and dying with his or her patients, is frank about the limits of medical care, works hard to prolong life and never deliberately takes life, but recognizes that there are times when treatments should be withheld or withdrawn” (p. 108).
From here