Word: saikewicz
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...Stone still feels that the Saikewicz decision was a good one. "I think this was necessary in an historical sense," Stone says. "Doctors were not aware of the moral and ethical issues involved," in making the decision whether or not to withhold treatment. Stone feels that the Saikewicz case forced doctors and nurses to confront these issues...
...Stone added that doctors misinterpreted the Saikewicz decision: "The way Saikewicz was read by the medical profession was that they had to go full steam ahead in keeping people alive." He says that it is "inevitable" and "appropriate" that cases will now arise narrowing the applicability of the Saikewicz decision...
...Mitchell T. Rabkin '51, general director of Beth Israel Hospital and associate professor of Medicine, says, unlike 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...
...lower court has gone ahead and clarified the Saikewicz case in last year's Shirley Dinnerstein decision. On June 30, 1978, the 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...
...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...