In one unexpected episode in City Creek Canyon on an ordinary November weekday, Battin's personal and professional lives collided.
She knew by heart the arguments for not resuscitating fatally injured patients. She had defended vigorously a person's right to be the final architect of his own death. Yet she also knew her husband well enough to believe he would want to live even if completely paralyzed. But what if he hadn't? Could she have signed a do-not-resuscitate order? Or worse, if he asked her to help him end his life, could she have done it?
Hopkins' life-altering accident on Nov. 14, Battin says, "has presented me more than an intellectual challenge to the views I've been defending over the years. It is a deeply personal, profoundly self-confronting challenge."
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
End of Life Expert Faces Issues Personally
The Salt Lake Tribune includes an article about a University of Utah medical ethics professor who specializes in end-of-life care decisions whose husband recently had a serious biking accident. The article discusses the professor's personal confrontation with these issues and includes a multi-media component.
