|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
Re: competency to consentFrom: Robert J. Woolley (wooll005@gold.tc.umn.edu)Mon Jul 21 11:03:19 1997
In message <AFF8E59F-73978@205.238.146.57> writes: > My psychiatrist husband (director of a state psychiatric hospital) reminds > me that only the court can determine competency in the U.S. Physicians > have no legal right to do so. Patients are presumed competent unless an > interested party (usually the family, sometimes law enforcement, less often > the hospital or physician) petitions the court and a judge rules the > patient is not competent. This is an oversimiplification to the point of gross distortion. It is true as far as legal competency. But legal competency and competency to give informed consent are two different things. E.g., a person with Alzheimer's may be ruled legally incompetent, but if he has periods of lucidity, he may well be able to make infomred consent to some procedure during that time. Conversely (and more commonly), a person may not meet the criteria for legal incompetency, or simply has not yet been through the process, and yet be incompetent to grant legal consent. Consider the case of the person in a coma from a car accident: by your description, Julie, since no court has adjudicated him legally incompetent, we have to assume him to be competent, and then when he doesn't sign the consent paper waved in front of his closed eyes, we have to throw up our hands and say, "Well, he won't consent. Guess we can't drill that burr hold to evacuate that subdural hematoma." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bob Woolley -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- St. Paul, Minnesota
|
|
Return to
|
Mail a New Message to the Forum: ob-gyn-l@obgyn.net Forum Administrator: geffrey.klein@obgyn.net Report Technical Problems: webmaster@obgyn.net Last Updated: Mon Nov 2 05:22:35 2009 |
The American Medical Association is no longer designating CME hours for AMA Category II CME credit. However, physicians themselves may self designate learning activities as Category II CME credit hours if they feel it is of sufficient educational merit and meets the formal definitions of continuing medical education. OBGYN.net believes these interaction in this forum meets these criteria. For further information see the AMA web site.