Conclusions: The recent trend has been to rely on proxy decision making for incompetent patients. Support for proxy decision making has failed to acknowledge the growing body of ethical and empirical research suggesting that ...

The use of the Quality Adjusted Life-Year (QALY) as a measure of the benefit obtained from health care expenditure has been attacked on the ground that it gives a lower value to preserving the lives of people with a ...

Over the past two decades a societal consensus has developed around the principle that decisions about life-sustaining treatment should be guided by patient self-determination. According to the President's Commission, ...