Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1991

Publication Title

Connecticut Law Review

Keywords

patient decisionmaking, overtreatment, hospital decisionmaking

Abstract

This essay will analyze the process of making health care decisions when patients' chances are slim. I look at recent legal tools that purport to enhance patients' control over their own care, and conclude that they are rarely efficacious. Because all medical decisions are based on prognosis, and because prognosis is ineluctably subjective, the doctor retains almost total control of the decisionmaking process.

Comments

Honorable Mention, 1989 Lappe Memorial Prize Competition, The Hastings Center

Volume

23

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