Ethics seminars: health care proxies and suicidal patients.
Advance directives, health care proxies, and living wills are forms of advance planning that permit patients to make decisions regarding their health care and are used when the patient becomes incapacitated. The ethics of allowing these forms of advance planning are questioned when the patient has attempted suicide. The authors present an ethical analysis of a case of an elder patient who overdosed on sustained-release diltiazem and had a health care proxy who wanted all treatments stopped.
Bania
Theodore C
TC
St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, Department of Emergency Medicine, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY 10019, USA. toxtod@aol.com
Lee
Richard
R
Clark
Mark
M
D016223:Advance Directives; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019727:Proxy; D011788:Quality of Life; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000523:psychology*; D028761:Withholding Treatment / Q000941:ethics*