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Legal, Medical, And Ethical Issues In Minnesota End-Of-Life Care: An Introduction To The Symposium, Thaddeus Mason Pope

Faculty Scholarship

As America grays, and medicine’s ability to treat the sickest of patients expands, the legal, medical, and ethical issues in end-of-life care become more numerous, pressing, and intertwined. Because Minnesota’s citizens, clinicians, and courts are not far from these concerns, the Hamline University Health Law Institute and the Hamline Law Review hosted an interdisciplinary Symposium entitled "Legal, Medical, and Ethical Issues in Minnesota End-of-Life Care."

On November 9, 2012, we welcomed more than 200 participants to the newly opened Carol Young Anderson and Dennis L. Anderson Center on Hamline University’s Saint Paul campus. These participants included: attorneys, physicians, nurses, social …

Medical Futility Statutes: No Safe Harbor To Unilaterally Refuse Life-Sustaining Treatment, Thaddeus Mason Pope

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past fifteen years, a majority of states have enacted medical futility statutes that permit a health care provider to refuse a patient's request for life-sustaining medical treatment. These statutes typically permit the provider to unilaterally stop LSMT where it would not provide significant benefit or would be contrary to generally accepted health care standards. But these safe harbors are vague and imprecise. Consequently, providers have been reluctant to utilize these medical futility statutes.

This uncertainty probably cannot be reduced. Consensus on substantive measures of medical inappropriateness has proven unachievable. Only a purely process-based approach like that outlined in …

Terminal Decisions: Landmark Cases In The Path Toward Ethical End-Of-Life Care, Phebe Saunders Haugen

Faculty Scholarship

This brief article discusses the history of end-of-life care from a legal perspective. The article highlights important cases in Minnesota.