Who Speaks for Vincent? A Case Study: Part II

Abstract

EDITOR’S NOTE: For this issue we are revisiting the case of a man named Vincent who had an extensive stroke and whose care posed some difficult practical and moral questions. In the preceding issue, we asked respondents to discuss the question of who was the appropriate surrogate decision maker to speak on Vincent’s behalf. We have a slightly different format for this column. Dr. Teresa Savage, the Research Assistant Professor at the College of Nursing, University of Illinois in Chicago, who presented the story of Vincent for discussion, interviewed Dr. Susan Rubin, a philosopher and clinical ethicist, about her perspective on a number of other issues raised by Vincent’s story. What follows is a recapitulation of the story of Vincent, and Susan B. Rubin, PhD, is a philosopher, clinical ethicist, and cofounder of The Ethics Practice, a Berkeley, California firm devoted to providing bioethics education, research, and clinical consultation. She is the author of When Doctors Say No: The Battleground of Medical Futility and co-editor of Margin of Error: The Necessity, Inevitability, and Ethics of Mistakes in Medicine and Bioethics Consultation. then a rich and nuanced discussion between Dr. Savage and Dr. Rubin on a number of issues raised about the decision-making process.