Description
Book SynopsisIn the quarter century since the landmark Karen Ann Quinlan case, an ethical, legal, and societal consensus supporting patients' rights to refuse life-sustaining treatment has become a cornerstone of bioethics. Patients now legally can write advance directives to govern their treatment decisions at a time of future incapacity, yet in clinical practice their wishes often are ignored. Examining the tension between incompetent patients' prior wishes and their current best interests as well as other challenges to advance directives, Robert S. Olick offers a comprehensive argument for favoring advance instructions during the dying process. He clarifies widespread confusion about the moral and legal weight of advance directives, and he prescribes changes in law, policy, and practice that would not only ensure that directives count in the care of the dying but also would define narrow instances when directives should not be followed. Olick also presents and develops an original theory of prospective autonomy that recasts and strengthens patient and family control. While focusing largely on philosophical issues the book devotes substantial attention to legal and policy questions and includes case studies throughout. An important resource for medical ethicists, lawyers, physicians, nurses, health care professionals, and patients' rights advocates, it champions the practical, ethical, and humane duty of taking advance directives seriously where it matters most-at the bedside of dying patients.
Trade ReviewThis book will be an important resource for physicians, medical ethicists, and other health care professionals as they deal with the rights and prerogatives of the dying and the legal and policy questions surrounding the choices to be made in the conduct of their care. New Jersey Medicine Disquieted that the wishes of dying patients do not direct care at the end of life even when their intentions and plans have been put to writing in an advance directive, Olick rethinks and reinvigorates the case for patient and family control in the face of significant challenges to the nature, scope, and importance of autonomy in the care of incompetent dying patients. Book News, Inc. I recommend this book highly to all health care professionals. It is clearly written, and beautifully argued. It was a pleasure to read such lucid prose reflecting clear thinking. It certainly gave a me a different perspective from which to argue for the rights of patients to die in a dignified manner, a topic that is important to all of us, health care professional or not. Nursing Ethics The book is simultaneously a model of scholarship and a work of advocacy that if heeded would dramatically change the way many patients die. Highly recommended for upper-division undergraduate and graduate students and faculty, and essential reading for professionals and practitioners. Choice An important resource for health-care professionals, medical ethicists, and legal scholars who are involved in the legal rights and policy issues surrounding end-of-life decisions. Medical Humanities Review
Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgments Introduction 1. The Place of Prospective Autonomy in Deciding for Incompetent Patients 2. The Ethical Foundations of Prospective Autonomy 3. Prospective Decisional Autonomy 4. The Problem of Personal Identity 5. Respecting Advance Directives: Putting Theory into Practice Conclusion Index
