The answer we give to this question symbolizes how we think about treatments to be offered to a patient near the end of life. Thus, these answers often say as much about us as they do about our patients or medical science.  In my experience, conversations around things like TPN toward the end ...

I generally try and avoid TPN unless I feel it's 1) for a short period of time: i.e., obstruction is from a known well-defined lesion, 2) in the disease that can otherwise be well controlled. Unfortunately, that is very rarely the case. Malignant bowel obstruction can be very frustrating for our p...