Who Decides When a Patient Can't? Statutes on Alternate Decision Makers

Erin S DeMartino¹, David M Dudzinski¹, Cavan K Doyle¹+6

• ¹From the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine (E.S.D.), the Biomedical Ethics Research Program (E.S.D., B.P.S., P.S.M.), and the Division of General Internal Medicine (P.S.M.), Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN; the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, University of Chicago (E.S.D., C.K.D., M.S.), the Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy, Loyola University Chicago School of Law (S.E.G.), and the Department of Medicine, University of Chicago Medical Center (M.S.) - all in Chicago; the Departments of Medicine and Philosophy, Georgetown University, Washington, DC (D.P.S.); and the Division of Cardiology, Massachusetts General Hospital (D.M.D.), Harvard Medical School (D.M.D., D.B.K.), and the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research, Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (D.B.K.) - all in Boston.