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. 2024 Feb;41(2):125-132.
doi: 10.1177/10499091231168976. Epub 2023 Mar 30.

What Counts as a Surrogate Decision?

Benjamin H Levi  1 , Anne Ef Dimmock  1 , Lauren J Van Scoy  1 , Theresa Smith  1 , Bronson Kunzler  1 , Andrew J Foy  1 , Laurie Badzek  2 , Michael J Green  1
Affiliations

What Counts as a Surrogate Decision?

Benjamin H Levi et al. Am J Hosp Palliat Care. 2024 Feb.

Abstract

When patients lose decision-making capacity, others must make surrogate decisions on their behalf. What counts as a surrogate decision might seem self-evident. But as clinician-researchers in the field of advance care planning, we have found that it is not always so clear-cut. In this paper, we describe how and why this is a matter of concern, a novel approach for assessing whether a surrogate decision occurred, and findings from this assessment.

Keywords: advance care planning; end of life; medical decision making; proxy; spokesperson; surrogate decision.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The clinician-researcher consensus process. (RC: Research coordinator ; V3: Visit 3)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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