Providers tried to help patients and families make realistic end of life decisions

Providers tried to help patients and families make realistic end of life decisions.

Norton SA, Bowers BJ. Working toward consensus: providers' strategies to shift patients from curative to palliative treatment choices. QUESTION: What are the strategies used by providers to assist terminally ill patients and their families in shifting from curative to palliative treatment choices? Design Grounded theory. Participants 10 nurses and 5 physicians (12 women and 3 men) who were work...

Legal ambiguities surround authority to make end-of-life decisions.

consent from patients, substitute decision-makers or an independent tribunal in order to pull the plug on life-sustaining treatments they deem futile? An informal survey of Canadian case law indicates that courts have been all over the map on the issue, which has recently resurfaced in the headlines as part of a dispute between two physicians at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto,...

Preparing for the end of life: preferences of patients, families, physicians, and other care providers.

To examine patients', families', and health care providers' preferences regarding preparation for the end of life, attributes of preparation were generated in qualitative focus group discussions and subsequently tested for generalizability in a quantitative national survey. Respondents from all groups showed consensus on the importance of naming someone to make decisions, knowing what to expect...

Making decisions with families at the end of life.

Because advance directives are not yet the norm, end-of-life decisions for patients without medical decision-making capacity are made regularly within discussions between the patient's physician and family. Communication and decision making in these situations require a complex integration of relevant conceptual knowledge of ethical implications, the principle of surrogate decision making, and ...

End-of-life decisions.