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.
The practice of banking sperm from adolescents about to undergo chemotherapy is not universal, which lends support to the argument that parental consent be required for the intervention.
A medical student’s desire to practice the specialty that he or she finds most interesting should not outweigh the right of patients in a pluralistic society to receive a full range of legal medical services.
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.
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.
There is a market for direct-to-consumer genetic testing and a need for better consumer information and more regulation of tests and testing laboratories.
U.S. and international medical organizations recommend against testing children for genetic diseases that occur after adolescence and for which no prevention or treatment is available.
U.S. and international medical organizations recommend against testing children for genetic diseases that occur after adolescence and for which no prevention or treatment is available.