Training Title:
Retired ~ Ethics VI, Part A, Chronic Medical Illness

Clock Hours: 1.5

Objectives:
• Understand and identify whether a patient is "decisional." • Learn about patient autonomy for children and adolescents. • Learn who has decision making powers for children and adolescents.

Description:
In dealing with those who are chronically and/or terminally ill, one's ethical decisions truly can have life and death consequences. But now, the complicated interactions between providers, patient, family, governmental regulations, practice parameters, and payers for this health care make it ever more difficult for a patient to make a decision. How can non-medical therapists help a patient understand the changing medical research, when we are torn between the desire for eternal life and the cost of achieving that, when we consider the increasing number of people with no access to health care, and when the money supply is limited and medical demand insatiable? And what if the patient cannot speak for himself or herself? Tonya Manselle, LCSW, "Decision Making" discusses decision making in serious medical situations, urging the mental health practitioner to be the patient advocate, lobbying for full information. She defines the standard for being "decisional," guardianship, advanced directives, and discusses the role of ageism as a deterrent to objective decision making. Peter Wolf, LCSW, "Decision Making with Seriously ill Adolescents" discusses the rights of children to know their diagnosis and who, legally has the right to tell the child. He explains how a therapist could intervene and help the child make the decisions the child is able to make.

Approval Bodies