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Letters |1 April 1997

Whose Death Is It, Anyway

Charles R. Routh, MD

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  • Muncie Internal Medicine, Muncie, IN 47303-4774
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TO THE EDITOR:
I enjoyed the essay by Hansot [1] and the related article by Gilligan and Raffin [2]. However, I believe it is misleading to imply that had the patient, family, and physician known that the patient had a living will, this nightmare would have been avoided.
Most living wills go into effect only if the patient has a “terminal illness.” Therein lies the rub. What is a terminal illness? What about an 87-year-old man who is slightly hypokalemic and fibrillates within hours of his first inferior myocardial infarction? Is this a terminal illness for which we invoke the living will and do not defibrillate? The point is, either I'm a bad doctor or many of us simply can't tell when a given illness or situation should be considered “terminal” and thus necessitate invocation of the living will.
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Routh CR. Whose Death Is It, Anyway. Ann Intern Med. ;126:586. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-126-7-199704010-00021

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Published: Ann Intern Med. 1997;126(7):586.

DOI: 10.7326/0003-4819-126-7-199704010-00021

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