Welcome to Medical Consult and Advocacy Services. We provide independent, unbiased counsel and support for those facing a serious illness or major surgery. Our team brings many years of clinical perspective to the table. Combined with our research and one-on-one counseling, our clients are able to make informed decisions about their health. Working with us means safer, higher quality care that is in line with our client’s personal values. It means getting personalized attention when it’s needed most.
The staff of MCAS will occasionally recommend articles that may be instructive, they will be posted here.
By Elizabeth Landau, CNN
June 16, 2010 1:36 p.m. EDT
The idea of a "living will" may sound like you have control over what happens to you if you temporarily or permanently can't make medical decisions for yourself, but in practice it's not so clear cut.
Gary Coleman's living will said he wanted to be kept alive unless he was in an irreversible coma for at least 15 days, according to a court document.
But the actor's ex-wife, whom he had designated as his agent to make medical decisions for him, ordered the doctors to disconnect life support one day after he fell into a coma last month, according to the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. He died of a brain hemorrhage. Although it may seem strange that a former spouse could decide whether a person lives or dies, experts say it's not unheard of, since it's up to the health care proxy to determine what the patient would have wanted.
A health care agent, proxy, surrogate or power of attorney has the authority to speak to the doctor on behalf of the patient who is unable to voice his or her own wishes. This person is named in, or on a document separate from, the living will, which describes what kind of medical treatment or care a person would want if he were unable to voice his or her own wishes.
The living will, also called an "advance directive," is primarily a guideline, experts say. Different states have different regulations governing how much weight the living will carries and how much authority the health care agent has. Caringinfo.org, run by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, has state-specific forms…
Jennifer Brokaw, MD (above, middle)
Lael Conway Duncan, MD (above, right)
Sara Callander Stephens, RN, BSN (above, left)
Kim Garlinghouse-Jones, RN, MPH
Katrina Bramstedt, PhD Ethicist
Mary Steele, MD
Alicia Sakai, PharmD, Clinical Pharmacist
Patricia Stone, MBA, Medical Insurance Specialist
When MCAS staff write commentaries or editorials that may help inform your perspective on health care issues, they are posted here.
By Jennifer Brokaw, MD
May 17, 2010
When you think of the term Personalized Medicine, does a DNA analysis spring to mind? I was recently surprised to learn that the term Personalized Medicine has been entirely co-opted by the genetic medicine industry. The sequencing of the human genome was a dramatic and quantum leap in a field that has been slowly redefining medical care for decades. The promise of understanding all of our genes and their roles in our illnesses and health has sparked the imaginations of researchers, clinicians and consumers alike. The problem is, we are not as far down that road as the personal genetic industry would have us believe. Personalized care is exactly what Medical Consult and Advocacy Services aims to deliver: insight and guidance that is based on a patient's particular biophysical as well as social and emotional context. As exciting as genetic medicine is--and as much potential as it holds, we believe that calling it personalized is a very narrow and misleading use of the term.
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