The Heart of the Matter: Exploring a Veteran's Wish for Pacemaker Deactivation.

Individuals living with serious illness might request deactivation of a cardiac implantable electronic device for a variety of reasons. Discontinuation of implantable cardiac defibrillators and pacemakers are considered to be ethically sound procedures. However, healthcare professional comfort with discontinuation of different types of devices might vary. In this case we describe a veteran's request for pacemaker deactivation and our interdisciplinary team's response to this request, including evaluation of total suffering, ethical considerations, and mood symptoms at end-of-life.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.