RvW,

Actually, I think most people will read our two messages and conclude that in fact *you* are the guy who's confused:

a) CPR isn't ordinary care? Really? I learned how to do it when I was 14, as did lots of other 14 year olds. 14 year olds are not a lot of things, but ordinary comes to mind.

b) You then go off and talk about bridges being built even though they might fail some day. While I appreciate and agree with this pragmatic and candidly pretty obvious point, I have no idea how it relates to the topic at hand.

c) Your point about "more than once this ridiculously expensive technique saved a life!!!" proves you missed my point.

What if I told you there was a 1 in 100 procedure, cost $1000, that could save a baby's life. Would you do it? What if it cost $10,000. What if it cost $100,000? What if it cost $1,000,000. This is a legitimate medical ethics question--and we must get comfortable with answering it. At the extremes, the answers are easy -- you would obviously spend $10, for a 1% chance at saving a baby's life. You would obviously NOT spend $1 Billion to save the baby's life. Somewhere in the middle is the uncomfortable place where yes turns into no. Modern technology has made this scenario not theoretical, but actual. We must decide.