Before patients make a fast, irrational decision, they should take the time to consider risk factors of the surgery. Enduring …show more content…
Some medical cases are too much to handle or too complicated for a surgeon to take on and they can refuse to operate. Such as, surgeons have rejected the opportunity to operate on incapacitated ICU, or intensive care unit, patients who will surely die without the surgery. The patient would have a little increase in the chance of survival if the surgery was performed, but the surgeon refused to operate (Wicclair, White 34). In other medical cases, surgery may not be very beneficial in the first place. Researchers examined records of 1,450 patients in the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ compensation database who were known to have disc degeneration, disc herniation or radiculopathy, a nerve condition that causes tingling and weakness of limbs. Surgery was needed to fuse two or more vertebrae in hopes of curing lower back pain. Although they all had equivalent diagnoses, only half of the patients chose to have surgery performed and the remainder of the patients did not. Only twenty-six percent of those patients that had surgery, even two years later had not returned to work, which converts into a seventy-four percent rate of failure. In addition, it concludes that they have a better possibility of going back to work if they decline the surgery in the first place (Nguyen, Randolph, Talmage, Succop, Travis …show more content…
To stop undesirable medical interventions, researchers have put forward a so-called “living will” or “natural death” law. The main purpose of this law is to provide capable people with a service to set forth a document, known as a “living will”, which states what the patient does and does not want done to them medically if they become mentally incompetent (The Right to Refuse 918). Each situation is different, but in most cases, when the patient is incompetent or unable to establish their own decisions, they have the right to appoint another person to request a medical treatment decision for them (The Right to Refuse 918). Additionally, in spite that different laws vary, a common law permits patients to direct the withholding or withdrawal of medical treatment if the patient becomes incurable (The Right to Refuse 918). This is an essential document to have under any medical conditions, so that surgeons and family members do not have to guess, what the patient would and would not want done to them. As expressed, a living will can be a very important segment to a patient 's medical health and overall decision