Personhood and a Paradox about Capacity

Abstract

For the past ten years I have been teaching medical ethics in a medical school and serving as Director of the Ethics Consultation Service in a hospital. An ethics consultation can be requested by anyone involved in patient care, including doctors, nurses, patients and their families. My consultation includes offering to meet with the most involved person from each of those four groups. Each one tells me their version of the same story. I then attempt to identify the points of convergence and dissonance, upon which all can agree. Each case that I describe in this paper is one that I was involved in, but with enough facts changed to prevent violating the confidentiality of the patient.