This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (4)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Peter McL. Black, MD, PhD

JAMA. 1985;254(24):3467-3468.

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

Moral disagreements with the attending physician are not often discussed in residency training, possibly because they are difficult to manage. All of us have probably been part of such disagreements, however, and may remember how vitiating they were for everyone involved. In this issue of THE JOURNAL, Winkenwerder¹ describes with eloquence and concern one such disagreement and its management.

It is instructive to review the situation presented in this article. The attending physician followed the guidelines currently accepted for making decisions for incapacitated patients; he asked the family to be the surrogate decision maker and used the patient's best interests as the criterion for decision making. Moreover, the decision was to affirm life, a decision legally required by some courts unless prior court approval has been obtained.³ Despite this, the resident was left with "a conscience that was disturbed."

How might Winkenwerder's conscience have been assuaged? He suggests . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Massachusetts General Hospital Harvard Medical School Boston

Footnotes
Address editorial communications to the Editor, 535 N Dearborn St, Chicago, IL 60610.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?