February 11, 2026 Webinar Information
Should this patient's treatment refusal be honored?
Webinar Description
In a potentially life-threatening situation, should a treatment refusal on religious grounds of an alert awake patient who lacks decision-making capacity be respected? What, if anything, justifies overriding a religiously based treatment refusal? Are there other bases for overriding a treatment refusal that might be justified? Please attend this webinar and participate in a nuanced discussion of ethical justifications to honor and not honor treatment refusals by patients with limited decision-making capacity.
Panelists
The panelists for the webinar are Jennifer Gower, Social Services Policy Specialist, WV Department of Human Services, Katherine Hill, MD, MS, FACS, Assistant Professor, WVU Dept of Surgery and Medicine, Division of General Surgery, Division of Geriatrics, Palliative Medicine & Hospice, Stacie Honaker, Esq., the Risk Manager and Privacy Officer for the WVU Health Sciences Center and ex-officio member of the WVNEC Advisory Committee, Dan Miller, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy, West Virginia University, and Alvin H. Moss, MD, Professor of Medicine, West Virginia University School of Medicine, and Executive Director of WVNEC. They will discuss the multiple clinical, ethical and legal issues in the case and how this conflict could have been avoided. Please attend, chat in your questions and comments, and learn answers to your questions and those of others.
Learning objectives
At the conclusion of the session, participants should be able to:
- Explain the elements of decision-making capacity and the standard approach to assessing it;
- Describe assessing decision-making capacity in patients with cognitive impairment;
- Discuss the role that degree of risk plays in making decisions with patients with limited capacity; and
- Identify what West Virginia law states about determination of decision-making capacity.