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“End-of-life care decision making carries paramount
importance due to the advancements in medical sciences.
Since medical science has evolved over the time and now
has a potentiality to reshape the circumstances during
death and in turn prolong lives, various ethical issues
surround end-of-life care (Karnik, 2016.”)%“Decision-making
for end-of-life care has earned paramount importance as it
has capability to prolong human life with the support of
medical technologies or can let the natural death process
continue by foregoing the treatment option. Hence, end-of-
life care is facing various ethical dilemmas.%%
“Decision making” is itself a very complex process of
thoughts and sets-up various challenges for patients and
their families to make up an end-of-life care
decision.%Persons have a right to put forward their end-of-
life treatment preferences. The Federal Patient Self-
Determination Act (PSDA) e.ective since 1991 has
facilitated communication between the healthcare providers
and patients or consumers. The person’s right to
autonomously voice their end-of-life treatment choices has
to be respected ethically considering the use of advanced
treatments and their prognosis. This right of autonomy has
some limitations, and hence faces an ethical dilemma. The
healthcare professional should respect the patient’s
autonomy while considering its limitations and carry out
their duties to bene1t the patient without doing harm.%
Even though we are discussing about patients right to
autonomy we are talking about its limitations. To elaborate
further, autonomy gives patients a right to control their
treatment according to their preferences, though many a
times their autonomy is not respected. They receive end-of-
life care which is in-consistent with their end-of-life care
preferences [6
]. This gives importance to the ethical issue
of autonomy surrounding end-of-life care preferences.%
References%
Karnik, S., & Kanekar, A, June 4, 2016. Ethical Issues
Surrounding End-of-Life Care: A Narrative
Review.%Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland),%4(2),
24.%https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare4020024
%
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