February 26, 2025 Webinar Information

The Non-Family MPOA Representative and the Unhappy Family

Webinar Description

One of the most frequent reasons for ethics consultation in West Virginia hospitals, nursing homes, and hospices is conflict between family members about end-of-life decisions for patients who have lost decision-making capacity. Although completion of advance directives can help, they don’t resolve all issues. The case of Mr. C being discussed in this webinar presents a great example of how tremendous conflict can occur when family members have not been involved in the patient’s life until close to the very end and then want to assert themselves in the decisions. This webinar will address 1) the authority and the limitations to it of the medical power of attorney representative, 2) the reasons why a Human Gift Registry may not accept a patient’s body even though the proper donation form was completed, and 3) the value of writing funeral arrangements in a medical power of attorney and the reluctance of funeral directors to perform cremation without agreement of a patient’s surviving spouse or all next of kin.  

Panelists

The panelists for the webinar are Stacie Honaker, Esq., the Risk Manager and Privacy Officer for the WVU Health Sciences Center and ex-officio member of the WVNEC Advisory Committee, Suzanne Messenger, Esq., State Long-term Care Ombudsman, WV Bureau of Senior Services,  Dan Miller, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy, West Virginia University, Stephanie Pockl, MD, Assistant Professor of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, WVU School of Medicine, 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:

• Describe a process to address ethical and legal issues that arise in the exercise of the authority of the medical power of attorney representative when other family members disagree;
• Cite West Virginia healthcare law relevant to cases involving ethical and legal conflict;
• Apply an ethics process and relevant healthcare law to make recommendations to resolve cases involving conflict; and
• Identify the particular ethical and legal issues surrounding specifying funeral arrangements on an advance directive and donating one’s body to science.