Role of in-House Counsel in Decisions about Withdrawal of Life Sustaining Treatment

Extract

For any hospital attorney, but especially for in-house legal counsel, the thought of a dissatisfied patient or other person turning to physical force or violence to achieve a particular outcome is the stuff of which nightmares are made. Apart from the human consequences of such situations, their occurrence means that counsel has failed to prevent problems. Problem prevention is one of the most important roles of any attorney and is the role which many in-house counsel view as their most important.

Resort to force within a health care setting is especially troubling, yet the potential for such outcomes exists in a variety of situations about which counsel are likely to be consulted. These include employee terminations, medical student or resident terminations from training programs, and, in the patient care context, situations where patient or family wishes are not mer. Just such an outcome occurred at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke Hospital, in Chicago, Illinois, (hereafter “Rush”) when Mr. Rudolfo Linares held hospital staff at gunpoint while he disconnected his infant son's respirator so that the child would die.