Word: courtly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...court became the first in the nation to uphold the withholding of emergency treatment from irreversibly, terminally-ill in-competent patients who suffer caridac or respiratory failure. The decision held that doctors have the final say on the right-to-die of these patients...
...Rabkin comments, "It said, 'look fellows, you practice medicine.'" Doctors now feel free to treat terminally-ill incompetents without court interference and they are relatively free to define irreversible terminal illness. Yet, a survey of practices in local hospitals reveals that the Saikewicz experience has served its purpose in making hospitals and doctors more careful about the right-to-die decisons...
...seems that doctors are using the court rulings as guidelines in making their decisions. But not everybody is satisfied. The suspicions of lawyers and doctors are still apparent. "The better solution is to have a system of review which involves some people other than those involved in the case," Stone says...
...Relman adds, "I think in this whole series of court cases, doctors have been made more cautious, and that is not necessarily a good thing." He adds that "the emphasis is in the wrong place here." He feels courts can play a role in ensuring that doctors act responsibly, by maintaining high standards in performance and education. "Doctors are the people whom society ought to be able to count on to consider the welfare of the patient. And if not, they ought to be held accountable," Relman says...
...debate between doctors and lawyers threatens to heat up once again as a more significant case looms on the Supreme Judicial Court's docket. The court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in September in Hall v. Myers, a case that deals with the appropriateness of euthanasia for any patient, competent or incompetent. It involves a prisoner on renal dialysis who wanted to stop his treatments and be allowed to die. The Suffold Superior Court has ruled that the prison commissioner could force the prisoner to keep taking his life-saving treatment...