I wouldn’t mind the aggressive care if hospitals paid equal attention to pain control and comfort, but my experience is that they are incredibly stingy with pain meds. My friend’s mother went through hell as the doctors very aggressively battled her myriad of health problems. But they weren’t interested in making her comfortable or pain-free. They resusitated, intubated, and operated briskly, but they handed out pain meds like it was coming out of their own pocket. Finally they transitioned over to hospice care, and that ended. Hospice gives you all the pain meds you want.
I work for a Big Pharma company and we have lobbied for almost 20 years to let the palliative care drugs be used under the proper circumstances. We’ve partnered with Ohio State Medical Center to advance our position and hopefully we’ll be successful.