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Alexia Torke, MD; G. Caleb Alexander, MD, MS; John Lantos, MD; Mark Siegler, MD

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Rozzini and Trabucchi raise the issue of whether the relationship-centered guidelines we propose for surrogate decision making are useful in clinical practice. Instead, they propose that physicians ought to have "the final responsibility" to make surrogate decisions after a careful consideration of the patient, the surrogate, and the physician's own moral beliefs. We agree with Rozzini and Trabucchi that sharing the burden of decision making is a duty of a caring physician but do not agree that increased physician authority is the solution.

When physicians and surrogates reach an irresolvable conflict, the law should provide a mechanism for making patient care decisions. In such cases, the legal system in the United States gives the surrogate decision maker a great deal of authority.¹ Case law and state statutes also specify that the surrogate decision maker . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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Physicians and Decision Making in Dementia
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The Physician-Surrogate Relationship
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