You’ve just suffered a large stroke, and are unable to communicate. Your doctor in the ER wants to give you a thrombolytic (“clot-busting”) drug. The drug will improve your odds of a good outcome from the stroke, but also comes with a small risk of brain hemorrhage (which might make you worse off). If the doctor can’t find your surrogate decision-maker, should she give you the drug anyway?

Panelists will discuss the ethics of presumed (or “emergency”, or “implied”) consent in the context of caring for patients with acute stroke.

Panel

• Winston Chiong MD, PhD, Memory and Aging Center, University of California San Francisco
• Lee Schwamm MD, Director, TeleStroke and Acute Stroke, Massachusetts General Hospital
• Jolion McGreevy MD, Emergency Medicine, Boston University

Neuroethics Seminar Series

This event is part of a series hosted by the Center for Biothics at Harvard Medical School.

Co-sponsors

• The International Neuroethics Society
• The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, Harvard Law School
• Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior, MGH
• Institute for the Neurosciences, BWH
• Center for Brain Science, Harvard University
• Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School

With funding from

• Mind Brain Behavior Interfaculty Initiative, Harvard University
• The Harvard Brain Initiative Collaborative Seed Grant Program