Terminal Illness Archives

By Armand Leone of Britcher Leone, LLC posted in Terminal Illness on Friday, May 3, 2013.

Physicians disagree whether terminal illness patients should be informed that they are dying. A recent study in the British Medical Journal highlighted the thinking on both sides of this controversial issue. On the one hand is the patient's right to know the truth about his or her condition. Not telling a patient about bad news undermines the physician patient relationship and deprives people of the opportunity to put their lives in order. Decisions about finances, guardianships, and funerals may not be made, because patients do not understand their inevitable close at hand demises.