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Caring for Incompetent Patients: Is There a Physician on the Case?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2021

Bernard Lo
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Extract

What medical care will I receive if I am too sick to make decisions about my care? Many people worry about this question, particularly about how they can retain control over such decisions. The portrayal in this case of physicians who fail to prescribe adequate pain relief and who feel threatened by active family participation in decision-making only reinforces such concerns. It seems that the hospice movement has had no effect on these physicians. Traditional advice, from wise grandmothers, might be to have a child who is a doctor or who marries a doctor. A more modern suggestion might be to give advance directives about future care. At first reading, this case illustrates the usefulness of both suggestions. But on closer reading the case reveals serious problems with both approaches.

Type
Article
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , Fall 1989 , pp. 214 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1989

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