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Updated: Jul 3, 2025

Using Visual and Narrative Methods to Achieve Fair Process in Clinical Care
Published on: February 16, 2011
Courts, rights and the critically brain-injured patient
1School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin Faculty of Health Sciences, Dublin, Ireland balyons@tcd.ie.
Abstract:
The reality of current clinical practice in the UK is that where a patient's family refuses to agree to testing for brain stem death (BD), such cases will ultimately end up in court. This situation is true of both adults and children and reinforced by recent legal cases. While recourse to the courts might be regrettable in such tragic cases, if public trust in the medical diagnosis of BD is to be maintained all aspects of the process must be conducted in a way that is transparent and open to scrutiny. This is not an 'ineffective expenditure' of resources, but an essential element of a human rights-compliant legal system.
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