Queensland researchers led by Ben White at the Australian Centre for Health Law Research, Queensland University of Technology (where I'll be tomorrow), have just published research in the Medical Journal of Australia demonstrating "critical gaps in the legal knowledge of many doctors who practise end-of-life medicine."
The study focused on (1) the validity and effect of advance directives and (2) the authority of substitute decisionmakers. The results show that physicians do not
possess sufficient legal knowledge:
- to determine whether an advance directive presented to them is valid.
- to determine whether they are legally obliged to follow a directive that refuses treatment in a situation when providing treatment is clinically indicated.
- to determine the legally authorized decisionmaker where there are various people who have an interest in the well-being of a patient
I am sure that U.S. results would be the same or worse. The authors rightly conclude that doctors' "lack of legal knowledge places their patients’ interests and rights at risk
— and them at legal risk."
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