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Ann Thorac Surg 2003;76:1336-1337
© 2003 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

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Correspondence

Legal consequences of disregarding a patient’s wishes: Reply

^a Department of Surgery, Institute of Human Values in Health Care, Medical University of South Carolina, 96 Jonathan Lucas St, Suite 409, Charleston, SC 29425, USA,

e-mail: sader@musc.edu

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

To the Editor:

I am grateful for the comments of Donald Ridley, legal counsel for the Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and respect his organization’s point of view. His discussion of the law surrounding informed consent was interesting; however, Dr McKneally [1] and I [2] deliberately avoided any mention of legal action to focus on the ethics of the case. Had we wished to discuss the legal aspects of decision making in cases of complications after operations on Jehovah’s Witnesses, we would have framed the case report differently. . . . [Full Text of this Article]