Welcome to Ethics Consult -- an opportunity to discuss, debate (respectfully), and learn together. We select an ethical dilemma from a true patient care case. You vote on your decision in the case. And next week, we'll reveal how you all made the call. And stay tuned, bioethicist Jacob M. Appel, MD, JD, will weigh in next week with an ethical framework to help you learn and prepare.
The following case is from Appel's 2019 book, :
The inmates at a maximum-security prison have gone on a hunger strike to protest their living conditions. They claim overcrowding, chronic mistreatment by corrections officers, and a recent ban on tobacco. After six weeks forgoing food, one of the prisoners, Tony, is near death from lack of nutrition. Tony is awake and alert, and states, "I'd rather die than abandon my hunger strike." He adamantly refuses to accept artificial nutrition.
See the results and what an ethics expert has to say.
Jacob M. Appel, MD, JD, is director of ethics education in psychiatry and a member of the institutional review board at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He holds an MD from Columbia University, a JD from Harvard Law School, and a bioethics MA from Albany Medical College.
And check out some of our past Ethics Consult cases:
Keep Patient on Feeding Tube After Dementia Dx?