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End-of-Life Care

  • Preserve Physicians’ Independent Medical Judgment

    The patient-physician relationship is unique in modern American life. Patients place their lives in their physicians’ hands. Not only must they trust in their doctors’ knowledge, experience, and skill, but they also must trust that their physician is acting in their best interest — neither motivated nor distracted by competing interests. In return, the physician is responsible for recommending and applying the most appropriate, science-based treatments for the patient’s individual circumstances and medical conditions. All of these pressures are magnified during the often-emotional final days and weeks of a person’s life.

  • Hospital Asks for Expedited Trial in Fort Worth Life-Sustaining Treatment Case

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    Believing that court-mandated, life-sustaining treatment is causing harm to a child in its care, Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth is attempting to resolve a highly publicized court case as quickly as possible.

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  • Wrong Directive

     

    Challenges to Texas laws governing end-of-life care, whether through legislative rewrites or judicial override, are nothing new. The recent success of those challenges is. And these legal shifts raise significant concerns for physicians and their ability to exercise their medical judgment in these difficult situations.

    Read the Law story in Texas Medicine.

    End-of-Life Care Presents
    Legal Hurdles      

  • TMA-Backed Principles Call for Flexibility in End-of-Life Visits for COVID-19 Patients

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    TMA, joined by six other state health care organizations, has produced a list of principles to help hospitals and other health care facilities provide more flexible visitation policies for patients facing serious illness or end-of-life situations during the COVID-19 crisis.

    End-of-Life Visitation
    During COVID-19      

  • Palliative Care vs. Hospice: Seeing the World Through a Different Lens

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    Some medical professionals view palliative care as a subspecialty of hospice likely to distress and reduce hope for patients and families. But palliative care is not hospice care and can occur in conjunction with ongoing curative or disease-directed therapies.
    1 AMA PRA Cat. 1 • 1 ETHICS

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  • End-of-Life Care Member Benefits

     
    Explore TMA Member Benefits  

  • What could a TMA membership mean for you, your practice, and your patients?

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