PHL281H1 Chapter Schwartz: PHL281H1 Chapter : Autonomy, futility, limits of medicine
Document Summary
Limitations on autonomy: patients can"t require that they be treated by nonmedical means, can"t require that they be given scientifically utile treatment, cannot require to be treated in ways outside of scope of medicine. Helga wanglie: refusal to prescribe treatment: post diagnosis: physicians suggested that life sustaining treatment be withdrawn due to no benefit, new physician concludes that respirator was non beneficial: wouldn"t heal lungs or palliate. Family insists on continued treatment: physician shouldn"t play god, patient isn"t better off dead suffering: unwilling to continue to prescribe respirator, a scarce medical resource. Courts did not ask this (an important question) nor: Was provision of this treatment in this case beyond limits of medicine, and therefore her power of choice. Hybrid question between science and values: question was not whether the treatment could successfully keep her alive (her desire) but whether keeping her alive under these circumstances was within proper schope of medicine.
