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, ...

Holden outlines events in the "Baby Jane Doe" case leading up to a Department of Justice suit in November 1983 against the State University Hospital in Stony Brook, New York, to obtain the infant's medical records. Parents ...

Medical practitioners often feel obligated to use all available procedures to sustain patients' lives. A review of case law indicates, however, that practitioners who abate treatment that is contrary to people's known ...

The authors propose a mathematical model for deciding appropriate use of life-sustaining care, using as an example out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation for chronically ill older persons. Incorporating determinations of ...