Time-limited trials of intensive care have arisen in response to the increasing demand for intensive care treatment for patients with a low chance of surviving their critical illness, and the clinical uncertainty inherent in intensive care decision-making. Intensive care treatment is reported by most patients to be a significantly unpleasant experience. Therefore, patients who do not survive intensive care treatment are exposed to a negative dying experience. Time-limited trials of intensive care treatment in patients with a low chance of surviving have both a small chance of benefiting this patient group and a high chance of harming them by depriving them of a good death. A ‘rule of rescue’ for the critically unwell does not justify time-limiting a trial of intensive care treatment and overlooks the experiential costs that intensive care patients face. Offering time-limited trials of intensive care to all patients, regardless of their chance of survival, overlooks the responsibility of resource-limited intensive care clinicians for suffering caused by their actions. A patient-specific risk–benefit analysis is vital when deciding whether to offer intensive care treatment, to ensure that time-limited trials of intensive care are not undertaken for patients who have a much higher chance of being harmed, rather than benefited by the treatment. The virtue ethics concept of human flourishing has the potential to offer additional ethical guidance to resource-limited clinicians facing these complex decisions, involving the balancing of a quantifiable survival benefit against the qualitative suffering that intensive care treatment may cause.

重症监护的限时试验应运而生，以应对重症监护治疗的需求日益增加，危重疾病存活率低的患者以及重症监护决策中固有的临床不确定性。大多数患者报告重症监护治疗是一种非常不愉快的经历。因此，无法在重症监护治疗中幸存下来的患者会面临消极的临终体验。对存活机会低的患者进行重症监护治疗的限时试验，既使该患者组受益的机会很小，又因剥夺他们的良好死亡而对他们造成伤害的机会很大。针对重症患者的“抢救规则”并不能证明限制重症监护治疗试验的时间是合理的，并且忽视了重症监护患者面临的体验成本。向所有患者提供限时的重症监护试验，无论他们的生存机会如何，都忽视了资源有限的重症监护临床医生对其行为造成的痛苦的责任。在决定是否提供重症监护治疗时，患者特定的风险 - 收益分析至关重要，以确保不会对受伤害机会高得多的患者而不是从治疗中受益的患者进行有时间限制的重症监护试验. 人类繁荣的美德伦理概念有可能为面临这些复杂决定的资源有限的临床医生提供额外的伦理指导，