Ethical Framework to Guide Decisions of Treatment Over Objection

Whether to proceed with a medical intervention over the objection of a patient who lacks capacity is a common problem facing practitioners. Despite this, there is a notable gap in the literature describing how to proceed in such situations in an ethically rigorous and consistent fashion. We elaborate on the practical application of the 2018 Rubin and Prager 7-question algorithm for ethics consultations about treatment over objection and we describe the impact of each of the 7 questions.

We retrospectively review a series of consultations at Columbia University Irving Medical Center between April 2017 and May 2020 for treatment over objection in adult patients determined to lack capacity. Outcomes about the final ethics recommendation and the assessment of each of the 7 questions are reported. The statistical analysis was designed to determine which of the 7 questions in the algorithm were most predictive of the final ethics recommendation.

In our series, there was an ethics recommendation to proceed over the objection of a patient in 63% of consultations. Although all 7 questions were considered to be important to the ethical analysis of a patient's situation, the presence of logistical barriers to treatment and the imminence of harm to a patient without treatment emerged as the most significant drivers of the recommendation of whether to proceed over objection or not.

Cases of treatment over objection in a patient lacking capacity are frequently encountered problems that require a careful balance of patient autonomy and a physician's duty of beneficence. The application of the Rubin and Prager 7-question algorithm reliably guides a care team through such a complex ethical dilemma.