Paula Tironi, JD, LLM and Monique M. Karaganis, MD
While parents often have legal authority to make decisions regarding pediatric palliative care, federal and state statutory and case laws, like CAPTA, impose significant restrictions on that authority.
Demographic information about a specific subset of patients can help physicians recognize conditions they do not expect to find in the larger population.
People with mental illness or a degenerative mental disease have special protections under the law when entering into contracts or other binding documents.
A review of a landmark case that determined why and under what circumstances antipsychotic medications can be administered to incarcerated patients with mental illness against their will.
Basic information about the two principal instruments used for assessing patients' decision-making competence and learn why both fall short of reliable, objective assessment.
Physicians do not have to give therapies or perform procedures that they judge to be futile and Catholic patients have the moral right to determine what is extraordinary or ordinary care.
Physicians should recognize that patients’ beliefs may cause them to have non-medical explanations for their illnesses and that shared explanations should be negotiated if treatment plans are to be successful.