Stop and think or think and stop?

The editorial by Hall et al,¹ was a brief but fairly comprehensive overview of an area relevant to all GPs. The assessment of whether to continue previously prescribed medication need not, of course, be confined to terminal cancer sufferers. Motor Neurone Disease, end-stage organ failure, and advanced dementia are other conditions that spring to mind. My own feeling is that in current practice we probably leave such decisions until they are not decisions at all but rather when swallowing becomes an issue or other problems/side effects occur.

My wry observation is that their own rhetorical question to the title could be misinterpreted. I assume the authors mean it might be time to ‘think and stop’ rather than the more reactionary converse!