Ethical and Legal Considerations in End-of-Life Care

If you are looking for an accessible primer on ethical and legal issues in a wide range of end-of-life medical interventions, check out "Ethical and Legal Considerations in End-of-Life Care" in the September 2019 issue of Primary Care: Clinics in Office Practice.

In caring for dying patients, family medicine practitioners intentionally adopt care plans that affect the manner and timing of death. These decisions are morally weighty. This article provides guidance regarding the ethical and legal appropriateness of practitioner decisions near the end of life. 

Topics include 

• Surrogate decision making
• Advance care planning
• Medical nutrition and hydration
• Double effect
• Futile care
• Physician-assisted death
• Voluntarily stopping eating and drinking
• Palliative sedation to unconsciousness
• Cultural humility

Frank Chessa, Maine Medical Center