title: Conditional preferences and refusal of treatment.
abstract: In this essay, I will use a minimalist standard of decision-making capacity (DMC) to ascertain two cases in the medical ethics literature: the 1978 case of Mary C. Northern and a more recent case involving a paranoid war veteran (call him Jack). In both cases the patients refuse medical treatment out of denial that they are genuinely ill. I believe these cases illustrate two matters: (1) the need of holding oneself to a minimal DMC standard so as to make as salient as possible the patient's own reasons for sometimes unusual treatment denials; (2) the need for clinicians and other relevant parties to exercise great sensitivity toward engaging, on the patient's own terms, idiosyncratic treatment refusals through regard for what I will call the patient's "conditional preferences." These are particularly relevant matters when a patient's DMC is questionable yet he/she registers what may well be his/her settled preferences.
authors: bglod@ihs.gmu.edu
authors: William
authors: W
authors: Glod
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003657:Decision Making / Q000941:ethics; D003702:Delusions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent; D008297:Male; D016743:Mental Competency; D026706:Paternalism / Q000941:ethics; D016312:Treatment Refusal / Q000941:ethics* / Q000523:psychology