Medical Choices and the Ethics of Incompetent Patients

Medical Choices and the Ethics of Incompetent Patients

The law guarantees that patients whether competent or incompetent possess the legal right to decide whether they want to be treated and which treatment method should be used. Patients have also the right to decide whether to discontinue a certain means of treatment. In theory, persons who suffer certain mental disabilities receive the same rights as competent persons (Shaver, 1989). Many times the medical decisions for incompetent patients come from the family and a few times from the medical practitioners. Physicians face difficult situations of decision making for incompetent patients. It even becomes much harder if the incompetent patient is a child as…