Must a man be his cousin's keeper?
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to A Meisel.
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The authors describe the various tests of competency to consent to treatment used today, which include the following: 1)evidencing a choice, 2)"reasonable" outcome of choice, 3)choice based on "rational" reasons, 4)ability to understand, and 5)actual understanding. They analyze the applicability of these tests to patients' decisions to accept or refuse psychiatric treatment and illustrate the problems of ap-lying these tests by citing clinical case examples. They find that the circumstances in which competency becomes an issue determine which elements of which tests are stressed and which are underplayed.
The authors draw together the disparate scholarly and judicial commentaries on consent to medical treatment to develop a model of the components in the decision-making process regarding consent to or refusal of psychiatric treatment. The components consist of the precondition of voluntariness, the provision of information, the patient's competency and understanding, and, finally, consent or refusal. They offer two models of valid consent: the objective model, which focuses on the congruence or lack of it between the patient and a "reasonable" person, and the subjective model, which focuses entirely on the patient's actual understanding.
The Tarasoff decision, by imposing on psychiatrists an obligation to warn the intended victim of threats made by a patient, but only under certain vaguely specified circumstances, may stampede psychiatrists into issuing such warnings to avoid possible legal liability no matter how remote the risk of harm may actually be. The authors suggest that the ill effects of such a reaction by psychiatrists--breach of confidentiality and the attendant erosion of trust and harm to the therapeutic alliance--can often be easily avoided by taking less drastic steps, some of which are illustrated by case presentations.
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1. When changes in urine flow rate were induced by vasopressin administration in eight subjects, urate excretion decreased by a mean of 14% and was positively correlated with urine flow rate (r = 0.88, P less than 0.01). The effect of vasopressin on urate excretion was not influenced by prior changes in extracellular fluid volume. 2. Mannitol administration in a dose sufficient to prevent vasopressin-induced alterations in urine flow rate blocked the effect of vasopressin on urate excretion. 3. Alterations in urate excretion produced by changes in extracellular fluid volume could be distinguished from the urate-retaining effect of vasopressin-mediated decrease in urine flow. Urate retention after vasopressin was entirely attributed to a decrease in pyrazinamide-suppressible urate excretion, consistent with either decreased secretion or enhanced post-secretory reabsorption of urate. 4. Since diminished urine flow rate in the distal part of the nephron is more likely to lead to enhanced reabsorption of urate, these results provide additional evidence for urate reabsorption in the distal part of the nephron.
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The relative contributions of volume expansion and increased fractional excretion of sodium to the uricosuria of saline infusion were assessed in 19 subjects by volume expansion with rapid infusion of 21 of hypertonic saline (3%), isotonic saline (0.9%), or hypotonic saline (0.45%). Urate excretion increased 385 mug/min (P less than 0.01) with hypertonic, 145 mug/min (P less than 0.05) with isotonic saline, and 294 mug/min (P less than 0.001) with hyptonic saline. When 150 meq of sodium chloride was administered as appropriate volumes of hypertonic, isotonic of hypotonic saline, the magnitude or uricosuria was correlated with volume load (r = 0.66, P less than 0.002). fractional excretion of sodium correlated with infusion volumes for all studies taken together (r = 0.35, P greater than 0.1). The relationship between fractional excretion of sodium and fractional excretion of urate was entirely attributed to their correlation with infusion volume. Both post-pyrazinamide urate excretion and pyrazinamide suppressible urate excretion increased with volume expansion.
Seven young adults with uric acid overproduction due to sickle cell anemia were normouricemic with a mean serum uric acid level of 4.9 mg/100 ml. Urate clearance was greater in these patients than in normal subjects or in patients with primary hyperuricemia due to uric acid overproduction. The increase in urate clearance was entirely accounted for by increased pyrazinamide suppressible urate clearance. Pyrazinamide administration abolished the uricosuric response to ribonucleic acid (RNA) feeding in these patients with sickle cell anemia, and maximal uricosuric response to the administration of probenecid was similar in the patients with sickle cell anemia and in normal subjects suggesting that reabsorption of both filtered and secreted urate was not impaired in sickle cell disease. Pyrazinamide suppressible urate clearance at maximal uricosuric response to probenecid was increased in patients with sickle cell disease suggesting increased tubular secretion of urate. This increase in urate secretion permits most young adults with urate overproduction due to sickle cell anemia to remain normouricemic and may account for the low frequency of secondary gout in this disease.
Within the last few years several lawsuits have significantly increased both the procedural and the substantive rights of mental patients; among them are Lessard v. Schmidt, in which the court held that persons facing involuntary civil commitment are entiltled to dueprocess safeguards, and Wyatt v. Stickney and Donaldson v. O'Connor, concerned with the right ot adequate treatment. The author draws on the problems of implementing the landmark decree of Miranda v. Arizona, guaranteeing the rights of criminal suspects, in discussing the difficulties of translating rights promulgated in the courts into reality. He believes that enofrcement of patients' rights depends not on the law alone but also on the sensitivity and good faith of mental health workers.
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