What are the Patient’s Rights at End of Life?
DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) Orders
Under the DNR law, all patients are presumed to consent to CPR if they have a cardiac or respiratory arrest.
Any competent elder can grant advance consent to a DNR order in writing, signed, dated and witnessed by two adults. Hospitalized patients can make oral requests but they must have two witnesses (one of them a physician with the treating hospital.) A properly executed DNR will be followed in most cases.
If an elder is incapacitated before a DNR order is executed, then the attending physician has to indicate a lack of capacity and get a second physician to place a concurring opinion in the chart so that the making of a decision regarding resuscitation is delegated in the following order:
DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) Orders
Under the DNR law, all patients are presumed to consent to CPR if they have a cardiac or respiratory arrest.
Any competent elder can grant advance consent to a DNR order in writing, signed, dated and witnessed by two adults. Hospitalized patients can make oral requests but they must have two witnesses (one of them a physician with the treating hospital.) A properly executed DNR will be followed in most cases.
If an elder is incapacitated before a DNR order is executed, then the attending physician has to indicate a lack of capacity and get a second physician to place a concurring opinion in the chart so that the making of a decision regarding resuscitation is delegated in the following order:
- The health care surrogate designated by the patient in his proxy
- The legal guardian if available
- The patient’s spouse
- Adult offspring
- A parent
- An adult sibling
- A close friend with documentation
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