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.
Virtual Mentor spoke with Dr. Stephen Epstein of Harvard Medical School about the Massachusetts ban and what other communities can learn from one state's experience.
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.
The open-access journal movement seeks to make medical research and treatment articles available free of charge to health professionals around the globe.