Abstract
The ethical principle of autonomy, the right of a patient to determine what therapies or interventions to accept or decline, has wide support in modern medical ethics and is strongly buttressed legally. Accordingly, clinicians need to have a robust familiarity with the statutes governing their practice, notably in such realms as advance directives and proxy decision-making. Ethical challenges frequently arise in the context of emergency and critical care medicine in which time-sensitive or highly consequential decisions must be made when the patient’s decision-making capacity is impaired or subject to question. This chapter addresses these challenges and offers potential approaches and solutions.
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Robertsen, A., Jöbges, S., Sadovnikoff, N. (2020). Consent, Advance Directives, and Decision by Proxies. In: Michalsen, A., Sadovnikoff, N. (eds) Compelling Ethical Challenges in Critical Care and Emergency Medicine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43127-3_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43127-3_4
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