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Administrative Aspects

Norman Fost, MD, MPH; Ronald E. Cranford, MD

JAMA. 1985;253(18):2687-2692.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

THE CUSTOM of physicians making decisions about life and death in private with relatives is becoming an anachronism. While that custom may persist in some hospitals and particularly when patients die at home, such events increasingly occur in referral hospitals,¹ with the involvement or scrutiny of innumerable consultants, residents, nurses, social workers, students, and other personnel. As the privacy of these decisions has diminished, public awareness and interest have increased. A growing catalogue of controversial court cases,^2-7 statutes,⁸ and regulations^9-11 marks the beginning of a search for principles to guide conduct in a way that can attract consensus. These changes have not occurred in a vacuum. They are part of the response to practices that have aroused concern. Laws are generally not written until there is a perception that an important moral principle has been broken.

Proposals for regulating decisions about life-sustaining medical care fall into . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Department of Pediatrics and Program in Medical Ethics, University of Wisconsin, Madison (Dr Fost); and the Department of Neurology, Hennepin County Medical Center, Minneapolis (Dr Cranford).

Footnotes
Reprint requests to Department of Pediatrics, University of Wisconsin, 600 Highland Ave, Madison, WI 53792 (Dr Fost).

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