Frank A. Chervenak, MD and Laurence B. McCullough, PhD
Clinical facts and physicians’ ethical obligations are critical in resolving disagreements between parents and physicians about resuscitation of an extremely premature infant.
Nonlegal, judicial, and statutory courses of action are available to patient surrogates and physicians who cannot agree on withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment.
Physicians and surrogates should take patients' preferences into account in making clinical intervention decisions, even if the patients have been found to lack decision-making capacity.
Physicians and surrogates should take patients' preferences into account in making clinical intervention decisions, even if the patients have been found to lack decision-making capacity.
Physicians and surrogates should take patients' preferences into account in making clinical intervention decisions, even if the patients have been found to lack decision-making capacity.
When evaluating the developments and complications of a marginally viable premature infant, physicians and parents must work together to decide on treatment that is in the infant’s best interest.
In a study of New York physicians' compliance with reporting of communicable diseases, surveyed physicians responded better to legal warnings than to requests that explained public health benefits.
A landmark court case in California determined that a competent adult patient has the right to forgo medical treatment and the patient's autonomy supersedes the state's interest in preserving the patient's life.