Ethics at the End of Life

1. Ethics at the End of Life Richard L. Elliott, MD, PhD Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine Director, Medical Ethics Mercer University School of Medicine Adjunct Professor Mercer University School of Law

2. Topics • Psychiatry • Medicine • Pediatrics • Obstetrics and -Gynecology • Family Medicine • Surgery • Emergency medicine

3. You are a recently graduated internal medicine attending at Sacred Heart Medical Center. A 21-year-old young woman is brought to the ER. She had been found not breathing in her apartment by her roommates, was resuscitated by paramedics. Toxicology was positive for alcohol and diazepam. She is unable to breathe on her own and is placed on a ventilator. After several months she has not regained consciousness and her parents request she be extubated.

4. Determine prognosis for recovery • Ask about advance directives, expression of wishes regarding ventilators • Ask the medical director about relevant policies and procedures • Request an ethics committee consultation

5. A neurology consultation determines your patient to be in a persistent vegetative state, and the prognosis for recovery is very small • The medical director informs you that Sacred Heart does not condone removal of ventilators unless patients are brain dead • The parents continue to insist on extubation

6. Attempt to transfer the patient • Tell the parents the hospital will pick up the costs of care if the patient remains intubated, but that the cost will be borne by the parents if they attempt to force extubation by legal means

7. An accepting hospital is not found. The case is heard by the state supreme court, which decides in favor of the parents’ request. • On what grounds might the court base its decision?

8. Right to privacy • Patient autonomy as delegated to surrogate decisionmakers

9. Having received the court order, you decide to: • Stop the ventilator immediately after notifying the parents • Wean the patient from the ventilator

10. After being weaned from the ventilator, the patient survives another 10 years in a persistent vegetative state, succumbing eventually to an infection

11. Who was this woman?

12. Karen Ann Quinlan 1954-1985

13. Right to Die Cases • 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut • 1973 Roe v. Wade • 1975 Karen Quinlan • 1990 Nancy Cruzan • 1994 Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act • 1997 US Supreme Court Quill, Washington • 2004 Terri Schiavo

14. Griswold v. Connecticut • 1965, Griswold v. Connecticut • Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut • 1961, gave advice and prescriptions to married couples for purposes of contraception • Connecticut law forbade such practice • US Supreme Court found • Right to privacy exists within the penumbra of constitutional rights

15. Karen Quinlan • 1975, New Jersey • Alcohol and Valium • Persistent vegetative state, ventilator • Family wanted ventilator removed • Hospital, AMA, attending physicians disagreed • New Jersey Supreme Court: right to privacy • Died 10 years later

16. Nancy Cruzan • 1983, Missouri • Motor vehicle accident, PVS • Parents argued for feeding tube removal • Missouri Supreme Court: evidence for Nancy Cruzan’s wishes did not meet clear and convincing standard • 1990 US Supreme Court: requiring evidence of patient’s wishes by clear and convincing not unconstitutional and right of a competent patient to refuse medical treatment (right to die)

17. Patient Self-Determination Act 1990 • Patients are given written notice upon admission to the health care facility of their decision-making rights, and policies regarding advance health care directives in their state and in the institution to which they have been admitted. Patient rights include: • The right to facilitate their own health care decisions • The right to accept or refuse medical treatment • The right to make an advance health care directive • Facilities must ask whether the patient has an advance health care directive, and make note of this in their medical records. • Facilities must provide education to their staff and affiliates about advance health care directives. • Health care provides not allowed to discriminately admit or treat patients based on whether they have an advance health care directive.

18. Nancy Cruzan Today? • What if, after two years of tube feeding and no change in mental status, her physicians approached the parents with the request that her feeding tube be withdrawn, and the parents insisted that Nancy be kept alive “whatever it takes?” • What might you consider?

19. Obtain consultation to verify futility of care • Consult with family about expectations for continued care • Approach the parents again after a month or so with the request and an explanation of her prognosis • Speak with someone they trust about explaining her situation and making the request • Request an Ethics Committee consultation to involve attending, medical team, family, administration • Attempt to mediate based on Ethics Committee’s findings • Give family opportunity to transfer the patient • Ask medical director for advice • Seek legal counsel

20. Futility of Care Policy • Not currently available in most hospitals • Non-emergent situations usually • Continued care is futile per consultant for functional improvement • Central elements to policy: • Consultations with staff. Family, ethicists • Mediation at least twice • Transfer if no resolution

21. A 54-year-old woman with terminal ALS approaches you with a request for “something to ease me out.” She would like to say her goodbyes, but breathing has become so difficult she cannot bear to live gasping much longer. • What should you do?

22. Physician-Assisted Suicide • Legal in three states • Oregon and Washington by statute • Montana Supreme Court ruled not illegal for physicians to prescribe lethal doses of medication to patients (Baxter v Montana)

23. Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act • Passed 1994 51-49 % • After US Supreme Court rulings in 1997, opposition from Oregon medical Association, Catholic Church, legislature repealed Act • Voters re-passed Act in 1998, 60-40 % • Act requires: clearly competent patient; less than six months to live confirmed by second MD; 15 day waiting period after request; MD prescribes lethal dose, does not administer

24. 1997 U.S. Supreme Court • Quill v. Vacco • Washington v. Glucksberg • New York and Washington states passed laws banning physician-assisted suicides • US Supreme Court: • No constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide • Laws banning physician-assisted suicide are not unconstitutional

25. Gonzalez v Oregon • Challenged Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act "Whether the Attorney General has permissibly construed the Controlled Substances Act, and its implementing regulations to prohibit the distribution of federally controlled substances for the purposes of facilitating an individual's suicide, regardless of a state law purporting to authorize such distribution.“ • Court ruled 6-3 in 2006 that Gonzalez had acted impermissibly • Thus the Death with Dignity Act could be implemented

26. AMA and Code of Ethics I • E-2.211 Physician-Assisted Suicide. • Physician-assisted suicide occurs when a physician facilitates a patient’s death by providing the necessary means and/or information to enable the patient to perform the life-ending act (e.g., the physician provides sleeping pills and information about the lethal dose, while aware that the patient may commit suicide).

27. AMA and Code of Ethics II • It is understandable, though tragic, that some patients in extreme duress--such as those suffering from a terminal, painful, debilitating illness--may come to decide that death is preferable to life. However, allowing physicians to participate in assisted suicide would cause more harm than good. Physician assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.

28. AMA and Code of Ethics III • Instead of participating in assisted suicide, physicians must aggressively respond to the needs of patients at the end of life. Patients should not be abandoned once it is determined that cure is impossible. Multidisciplinary interventions should be sought including specialty consultation, hospice care, pastoral support, family counseling and other modalities. Patients near the end of life must continue to receive emotional support, comfort care, adequate pain control, respect for patient autonomy, and good communication.

29. Review • 1976 • Karen Ann Quinlan, “Right to Die” • 1990 • Nancy Cruzan, Patient Self-Determination Act

30. Withdrawing Medical Treatment • 1973 - Roe v. Wade • Right to privacy • Karen Quinlan • 1975, New Jersey • Removal of ventilator • Nancy Cruzan • 1983, Missouri • Removal of feeding tube • Terri Schiavo • Florida, “Terri’s Law” struck down 10/04

31. Elizabeth Bouvia • 1985, California • Cerebral palsy, college degree • Wanted to stop eating and die • Hospital force fed • California Court of Appeals: “A desire to terminate one’s life is probably the ultimate exercise of one’s right to privacy.”