Why do most physicians have so much difficulty respecting the wishes of their terminally ill patients who refuse treatment? The normative pluralism model is introduced to answer this question. Comparative content analysis serves as the theoretical framework for evaluating the Canadian Medical Association Joint Statement on Resuscitative Interventions against the corresponding administrative policies of New Brunswick hospital corporations and relevant New Brunswick law. Despite protection afforded patients by law, fully 75% of New Brunswick hospital corporations’ administrative policies permit physicians to ignore patients’ expressed objection to treatments. The futility-of-treatment criteria in the CMA joint statement and in all provincial hospital corporations’ policies authorize physicians to substitute their judgment for patients’ expressed refusal of CPR. The author concludes that when medical professional norms conflict with the law, physicians tend to follow their professional normative order.
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