[2skep]

What would you prefer?

A surgeon who expects a poor outcome of your surgery:

a)decides to not operate on you? b)decides to operate on you nonetheless?

I am in camp a

[calcifer]

I'm definitely in camp B. 90% chance of dying on the table beats a 100% chance of dying without the surgery, every single time.

[jack9]

Quality of life matters in most of these marginal cases. If they are going to give you the Konno procedure (scrape extra tissue out of a thickened ventricle), there's tons of things that can go wrong OTHER than death. Death is assured, either way, for everyone.

[stordoff]

It depends what the outcome is without the surgery. If I'm dead without it, I want them to operate regardless. If there's only a chance of death, or the surgery is aiming to improve quality of life (rather than prevent [imminent] death), it's more of a judgement call.