Patricia D. Quigley, MD and Megan A. Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH
Maintaining an adolescent’s confidentiality while answering his or her parents’ questions about their child’s change in mood and behavior can be challenging.
Advance directives, substituted judgment, and the best-interest standard all have limitations that constrain their usefulness in making medical decisions for patients who cannot choose for themselves.
Advance directives do not always resolve questions about the best care for patients who no longer have decision-making capacity; physicians and patient surrogates can take alternative approaches to arrive at the best care decision.
Does a surgeon’s complication rate in a randomized controlled trial constitute a “significant new finding” that must be reported to patients during the consent process?