Entire Transcript in Adobe Acrobat Format - National Reference ...

237
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
(Simultaneous discussion.)
DR. LO: Well, the law requires clear and
convincing evidence. Most people do not give it. What
happens in New York is that doctors want the law because it
is the most ethical thing to do.
MR. CAPRON: Right. That is my point. That is
why you could say that "advance directives" have been a
failure and why everybody in the country does not have one
because the message is out there to people and their
doctors that these decisions are going to get made anyway.
As I say to you, do a thought experiment, if
the experiment I described before was the case where
everybody got the full court press everything medicine
could do until they fell apart biologically or
physiologically you could be damn sure that there would be
a lot more people having advance directives and every
doctor would raise it with any patient who he thought was
within ten years of death because he would not want to be
stuck having to do that.
DR. EMANUEL: Alex --
MR. CAPRON: But that is not the case. That is
why advance directives have not worked here. We all avoid
thinking about death, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
That is not the case with these patients if they are in