CASE STUDY

Case Study: Winston

Case Study: Winston

According to me, Winston's inability to self-care is sufficient to keep him in the hospital, perhaps on a mental health form. It will be in the best interests of Winston. But in order to constitute an informed consent (or refusal), a competent Winston's decision must be both informed and voluntary. Legal discussions of conditions that would impugn the voluntariness, and thus validity, of informed consent focus on undue pressures, threats, and coercion imposed by external factors. However, the medical setting is replete with pressures stemming from the experience of illness (e.g., pain, discomfort, and fear), as ...