Autodeterminazione e responsabilità sanitaria: le trasfusioni di sangue nei pazienti Testimoni di Geova

Abstract

[Self-determination and medical liability: blood transfusion in Jehovah's Witnesses patients]

The present article begins with a brief analysis of the biblical reasons why Jehovah's Witnesses refuse transfusions, to analyze the right to self-determination of a patient, which is exercised through the express informed consent to medical treatment.

Then, the article examines three situations that a doctor who is treating a Jehovah's Witness may face: a non-urgent clinical situation that allows different treatment choices; a condition that requires treatment choices obliged but deferrable over time; and, finally, a situation that forces the doctor to a single  therapeutic choice not postponed and predictable.