Doctors' Legal Position In Treating Temporarily Incompetent Patients

Doctors in accident and emergency departments are sometimes presented with patients with potentially life threatening conditions who refuse to consent to treatment. The doctors then face a dilemma: to withhold necessary treatment or to act against a patient's express wishes. Two such cases are...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMJ (Online) 1995-07, Vol.311 (6997), p.115-118
Main Authors: Hodgkinson, David W., Gray, Alistair J., Dalal, Brian, Wilson, Petra, Szawarski, Zbigniew, Sensky, Tom, Gillett, Grant, Yates, D. W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Alcoholic Intoxication
Alcohols
Attempted suicide
Beneficence
Craniocerebral trauma
Craniocerebral Trauma - therapy
Drug Overdose - therapy
Emergency departments
Emergency Medicine - legislation & jurisprudence
Ethical Debate
Ethics, Medical
Humans
Legal consent
Male
Mental Competency
Mental health
Mental illness
Middle Aged
Overdose
Paternalism
Personal Autonomy
Police
Suicide, Attempted
Treatment refusal
Treatment Refusal - legislation & jurisprudence
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Summary:Doctors in accident and emergency departments are sometimes presented with patients with potentially life threatening conditions who refuse to consent to treatment. The doctors then face a dilemma: to withhold necessary treatment or to act against a patient's express wishes. Two such cases are presented, and we asked a lawyer, two medical ethicists, a psychiatrist, and an accident and emergency physician to comment on the implications.
ISSN:0959-8138
1756-1833
1468-5833