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Full-Text Articles in Health Law and Policy
Standards For Health Care Decision-Making: Legal And Practical Considerations, A. Kimberley Dayton
Standards For Health Care Decision-Making: Legal And Practical Considerations, A. Kimberley Dayton
Faculty Scholarship
This Article explores the guardian’s role in making, or assisting the ward to make, health care decisions, and provides an overview of existing standards and tools that offer guidance in this area. Part II outlines briefly the legal decisions and statutory developments assuring patient autonomy in medical treatment, and shows how these legal texts apply to and structure the guardian’s role as health care decision-maker. Part III examines the range of legal and practical approaches to such matters as decision-making standards, determining the ward’s likely treatment preferences, and resolving conflicts between guardians and health care agents appointed by the ward. …
Feeding The Permanently Unconscious And Terminally Ill Or Dying Is Not Always Compassion, Phebe Saunders Haugen
Feeding The Permanently Unconscious And Terminally Ill Or Dying Is Not Always Compassion, Phebe Saunders Haugen
Faculty Scholarship
A surrogate decision maker may conclude that efforts to mechanically provide liquid nourishment would cause considerable suffering in return for little gain. But such a decision is unquestionably one that can produce great conflict for families and for medical caregivers. Assessment must be made of each patient's situation and of the benefits and burdens that will result if tube feeding is withheld or withdrawn. It may well be, however, that in some cases, the most humane and compassionate treatment for a patient is the withdrawal of all technological interventions, including those that supply nourishment.