Advance directives are legally recognized documents and doctors must respect their known wishes, but doctors can always refuse to comply with their wishes if they have conscientious objection or consider their wishes to be medically inappropriate. But his family can't annul his living will. They cannot take away your authority to create your own treatment and care plans. In fact, you always retain the right to override your own decisions.
You can also allow your appointed representative or power of attorney to modify the terms of your living will or revoke a directive. Current law could be interpreted to allow a power of attorney to override an advance directive. However, in all cases, the wishes of a patient must be met, with the necessary capacity. You may also decide to make your psychiatric advance directives irrevocable, and that it is best to be treated according to your psychiatric advance directives, even if you object at the time.
You cannot revoke your advance directives until you are able to make decisions, even if you object to treatment at that time. You can include a statement that gives your agent responsibility to make health care decisions for you, even over and above your objections. The situation is not an emergency, the benefits of pain relief and quality of life with surgery are likely to outweigh the harms, advance directives do not fit perfectly and also give the surrogate mother room for maneuver, and the surrogate represents the best interests of the patient. Advance directives can help people communicate their treatment options when they might not be able to make such decisions otherwise.
The best way to know if your medical team will respect your wishes or not is to talk to them ahead of time. Whether legally enforceable or not, your doctor may want to follow your advance directives simply because they help you treat you most effectively. For example, depending on your condition, there may be times when it is not possible to follow your advance psychiatric instructions. If you're facing an end-stage diagnosis and want to make it easier for your family to fulfill your wishes, you need to learn how an advance health care directive can help you.
You can use the advance directive for care form to tell your doctor that you want to avoid life-prolonging interventions, such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), kidney dialysis, or respirators. In modern medical practice, healthcare providers know to ask if patients have advance directives and will generally follow these conflicting interest directives as required by state law. However, it is your responsibility to ensure that your contacts have a copy of your most recent advance psychiatric directives. In these states, physicians and other healthcare professionals are generally expected to follow their patients' advance directives when possible, subject to reasonable physician discretion and ethical considerations.
The Advance Health Care Directive form is for all adults, including mature minors and emancipated minors. An advance directive signed by the patient sets a preference for “comfort measures only”, and specifically states that she does not want to be transferred to the hospital. A doctor or other health care provider cannot require you to complete an Advance Health Care Directive as a condition for you to receive services.
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