Word: patient
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...court added that it "recognized a general right in all persons to refuse medical treatment in appropriate circumstances," based on the constitutional right to privacy which modern courts have interpreted in the last 15 years. It also accepted the current ethical practice that providing comfort for a dying patient is often in his own best interest...
...Most doctors are very much opposed to this," Dr. Arnold S. Relman, professor of Medicine and editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, says. 'This is an area where the courts have no business operating." Any danger of a family disregarding the best interests of the patient can be avoided by requiring second and third opinions, he added...
...most of his colleagues, that "the Saikewicz decision was a wise one." But he, too, feels that doctors read the ruling too strictly--that every time one wants to withhold treatment from incompetents, one must seek the court's approval. Rabkin feels this is not appropriate for a dying patient...
...Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled that Saikewicz dealt with a case where there was a reasonable chance of prolonging or saving life; in the case of Dinnerstein, however, treatment would have been "a mere suspension of the act of dying," the court said. The case of a patient near death such as Dinnerstein presented "no significant treatment choice or election" because "attempts to apply resuscitation, if successful, will do nothing to cure or relieve the illnesses which will have brought the patient to the threshold of death...
...first type of patient, for whom death is thought to be imminent, it is possible to stop treatment if the family wishes. For the other type of patient, MGH still resorts to the courts if the doctor and family feel the patient should be "treated selectively rather than aggressively." In all situations, the family's wishes are respected and heeded despite disagreement with a doctor...