Asking the Courts to Set the Standard of Emergency Care - The Case of Baby K

Authors

George J. Annas, Boston University School of LawFollow

Author granted license

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1994

ISSN

0028-4793

Publisher

Massachusetts Medical Society

Language

en-US

Abstract

Almost two decades ago, Dr. Franz J. Ingelfinger predicted that if physicians kept turning to the courts “to resolve essentially medical matters,” the medical profession's unfortunate “dependence on the lawyer in reaching essentially medical decisions will continue”1. One can argue about what decisions are “essentially medical,” but the trend that worried Dr. Ingelfinger has continued, and now physicians and a hospital have sought legal and judicial guidance about how -- and whether -- to treat an anencephalic infant known as Baby K.

Comments

From The New England Journal of Medicine, George J. Annas, Asking the Courts to Set the Standard of Emergency Care - The Case of Baby K, Volume 330, Page 1542 Copyright ©(1994) Massachusetts Medical Society. Reprinted with permission.

Recommended Citation

George J. Annas, Asking the Courts to Set the Standard of Emergency Care - The Case of Baby K , in 330 New England Journal of Medicine 1542 (1994).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/1263