Patient, family, physician: agreement, disagreement, and resolution.

This paper examines the role of the family in moral decision making with critically ill patients. It offers a case for consideration and examines the issues concentrating on questions of autonomy, the family's role in decision making with autonomous patients, the special duty which patient helplessness confers on the physician, the role of empathy and courage in the physician's moral agency. It uses these issues to offer a possible resolution.