Patient Fz Decision Making Capacity

Many doctors are faced with decision-making capacity situations every day, where they must determine if patients are competent to make their own medical decisions. If that is not the case, it must be arranged for healthcare agents or surrogates to make medical decisions. In the case of Patient FZ it is unclear whether he has decision-making capacity or if he lacks it. The neurologist and psychiatry consultant believes he lacks the ability to make his own medical decisions, but the nephrologist disagrees with that finding. If a patient has decision-making capacity and refuses treatment their refusal of treatment must be respected, but if a patient lacks decision-making capacity and refuses treatment, a health care proxy would step in to make
Doctors must use the clinical standards for decision-making capacity where they evaluate a patient’s ability to make/ communicate choices, if a patient understands all information given and if they appreciate their medical condition which includes treatment, risks, benefits, and alternative options, whether patients can support their decisions with valid reasons, and whether patient’s choices are a result of delusions. A patient with decision-making capacity understands that they have the power to make the best medical decision for themselves. This patient must be able to make and communicate a choice. This means that they must either give informed consent to medical treatments or refuse treatments. The patient must give the same answer when asked the same question and must refrain from being indecisive. If a patient is unable to speak, they can communicate their choices through writing, nodding, or by blinking. If the patient can do neither of these, this is where an advance directive would come in handy. It would express the patients’ medical wishes. Based on the article “Advance Directives and Outcomes of Surrogate Decision Making Before Death”, results of the study showed that elderly patients who had a living will and a surrogate decision maker established care that was in their favor, apart from those who had no living will or surrogate decision maker. Having a living will can be beneficial to an end of life patient who is incompetent and not able to make decisions for themselves. While this study discusses the outcome of elderly patients who had living wills and health care proxy in comparison to those who had neither, it still relates to the case of Patient FZ. It is unclear if Mr. FZ has a living will, but he does have a surrogate decision maker, who is his wife