Gavels in the nursery: an Appellate Court shuts out parents and physicians from care decisions

This article explores a recent Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision in a medical malpractice case and its ramifications regarding Wisconsin's informed consent statute. The authors compare and contrast this decision with previous Wisconsin Supreme Court cases and consider the relevance of applicable federal law. The article presents a thoughtful analysis of how the Wisconsin Court of Appeals should have approached the issue, as well as how it created potential conflicts regarding the ethical duties of healthcare providers treating children.     

Legal aspects of withholding treatment from handicapped newborns: substantive issues

The controversy over nontreatment of handicapped newborns arises in a context of criminal and civil law, against which the current controversy has unfolded. This article examines the legal setting and background under traditional criminal and civil law concepts of nontreatment of handicapped newborns. It focuses on substantive principles of law, showing that nontreatment would be legally permitted when treatment could not be reasonably said to be in the interest of the patient involved, and that nontreatment could be considered criminal where treatment would serve patient interests. It then relates this analysis to procedural issues and the federal Baby Doe legislation and regulations that have recently emerged.     

Amendments to procedures for certain determinations and decisions. Final rules

We are revising the procedures for how claimants who receive fully favorable revised determinations based on prehearing case reviews or fully favorable attorney advisor decisions may seek further review. We are also revising our procedure to provide that we will notify claimants who receive partially favorable determinations based on prehearing case reviews that an administrative law judge (ALJ) will still hold a hearing unless all parties to the hearing tell us in writing that we should dismiss the hearing request. These changes will simplify our administrative review process and free up scarce administrative resources that we can better use to reduce the hearings-level case backlog.