Perhaps machine learning systems trained on patients’ electronic health records and social media footprints could be used as decision aids when patients lack capacity or face overwhelming decisions.

The AMA Code of Medical Ethics' opinions related to decision-making capacity and competence and surrogate decision making.

When patients cannot give informed consent or refusal for antipsychotic medication, physicians must meet specific criteria to justify temporarily withholding a diagnosis.

Professional society guidelines can be used to set standards for clinical practice instead of government. This approach could help if federal or state policymakers view discarding embryos as ethically equivalent to abortion.

Elder self-neglect can be assessed with the Elder Self-Neglect Assessment (ESNA) and addressed by physicians’ partnering with patients to achieve common goals.

End-stage heart failure patients can experience depression along with their chronic illness. Multidisciplinary responses are critical.

Patients have a right to decline or withdraw LVADs. Informed consent and shared decision making is not easy, however, with treatments that are high risk, high reward.

Women with intellectual disabilities should not be sedated for a pap smear without their assent, and the test’s risks and benefits should be weighed.

Women with intellectual disabilities should not be sedated for a pap smear without their assent, and the test’s risks and benefits should be weighed.

A deliberative approach to responding to needs and vulnerabilities of unrepresented patients can help make the most of having too little information.