Family Involvement in the End-of-Life Decision-Making Process: Legal and Bioethical Analysis of Empirical Findings

Nili Karako-Eyal, Roy Gilbar

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Abstract

End-of-life decision making involves clinicians, patients, and relatives; yet, the law in Israel hardly recognises the role of relatives. This raises the question of the law's impact in practice and, hence, whether it should be amended. This issue is examined on the basis of findings from a qualitative, interview-based study conducted in Israel among relatives of dying patients. The findings indicate that there are areas in which clinicians and relatives do not adhere to the law in the end-of-life decision-making process. For example, they do not always ascertain the patient's end-of-life preferences, which ignores a patient's right to autonomy and their right to make informed decisions. The apparent gaps between the actual conduct of clinicians and relatives on the one hand and the directives of the Israeli Dying Patient Act 2005 on the other, lead us to propose several changes to the Act.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)497-523
Number of pages27
JournalMedical Law Review
Volume29
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 8 Oct 2021
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • Israeli law
  • autonomy
  • decision-making
  • end-of-life
  • family
  • relatives

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Medicine

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Family Involvement in the End-of-Life Decision-Making Process: Legal and Bioethical Analysis of Empirical Findings'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this