In some hospitals, medical futility is referred to as "non-beneficial care."

According to Fine's data, the hospitals surveyed held 2,922 ethics committee consultations, 974 of which concerned medical futility cases.

The concept of medical futility has been an important topic in discussions of medical ethics.

Spouses or children of dying patients must sign the document to withhold resuscitation and spare loved ones an exercise in medical futility.

Leading bioethics scholar Thaddeus Mason Pope recently profiled the case on his medical futility website.

The family has received support from a prominent authority on medical futility, Thaddeus Mason Pope, and conservative commentator Wesley J. Smith.

Foley was awarded a Fulbright grant in spring 2011, conducting research on medical futility at the School of Law at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

Its pursuit has blurred the boundaries of medical futility and helped fuel the conviction shared by doctors and patients that it is better to err on the side of doing more rather than less.

The case of Baby K is of particular importance to the field of bioethics because of the issues it raises: the definition of death, the nature of personhood, the concept of medical futility, and many issues relating to the allocation of scarce resources.