Selasa, 07 Juni 2011

A Prerogative to Take Advantage of Everything in the Medical Armamentarium?

In yesterday's New York Times, Jane Brody writes about the New York Palliative Care Information Act.  This is basically a specialized informed consent obligation like that earlier enacted in California and more recently considered in Maryland and Arizona.  Unfortunately, such laws seem to be necessary.  


What caught my eye in the article was this statement:  "Even knowing these facts [about palliative options], some patients are likely to choose to take advantage of anything and everything in the medical armamentarium that could conceivably grant them extra days, weeks or months of life.  And such a choice is the prerogative of every terminally ill patient; the new law does not in any way deny that choice."  Well, the PCIA does not deny that choice.  But it is hardly clear that patients have that right under New York law.  


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