Medical Incapacity Without Mental Illness: A Legal and Ethical Dilemma for Physicians

Medical holds are commonly associated only with patients suffering from mental illness, but what happens when a patient needs to be held for treatment or observation due to a non-psychiatric problem? Wendi Campbell Rogaliner, Partner, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, and Elicia Grilley Green, Associate, Husch Blackwell LLP, discuss the legal and ethical considerations of holding patients who are not suffering from mental illness. They cover real-world examples, the current legal landscape, formal assessments of capacity and surrogacy appointments, and how providers can assess risk and operate in this complex legal environment. Wendi and Elicia authored an article for AHLA's Journal of Health and Life Sciences Law about this issue.Essential Legal Updates, Now in AudioAHLA's popular Health Law Daily email newsletter is now a daily podcast, exclusively for AHLA Comprehensive members. Get all your health law news from the major media outlets on this podcast! To subscribe and add this private podcast feed to your podcast app, go to americanhealthlaw.org/dailypodcast.Stay At the Forefront of Health Legal EducationLearn more about AHLA and the educational resources available to the health law community at https://www.americanhealthlaw.org/.