Aging Well: Legal and Ethical Issues at the End of Life

Recorded: Wednesday, December 13 2023
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Dying is a universally shared experience, yet is uniquely personal. The experience of death and the conditions under which death occurs are different for every person. For the lawyer guiding their client about end of life concerns, or for the physician caring for their patient nearing the end of life, specific legal and ethical challenges characterize the measures and decisions that need to be made at a time when they and their families and loved ones may be experiencing intense emotional stress.
In this virtual seminar, lawyer and law professor Norman Cantor will focus on ways the law relates to efforts to avoid a prolonged, painful or unacceptably debilitated dying process. For a mentally sound patient diagnosed with a terminal or severely debilitating chronic illness, the topic of PAD (physician assisted death), may arise. The legality of this avenue is nuanced and complex. For persons who are apprehensive about future cognitive debilitation (via stroke, brain injury, or dementia) and fearful of being stuck in a prolonged debilitated state, ACP (advance care planning) is appropriate. This can mean appointment and instruction of a health care agent and/or preparation of an advance medical directive (a living will). Cantor’s talk will relate to issues surrounding sound advance care planning. Additionally in this program, Alan Lippman will bring his expertise in medical ethics, speaking about some of the situations that frequently arise during this fraught time in a patient’s life: decisions regarding resuscitation, mechanical ventilation, artificial nutrition, terminal sedation, withholding or withdrawing treatments, and one of the most controversial issues in contemporary medicine - physician-assisted death.
Norman Cantor is a cum laude graduate of Princeton University and a magna cum laude graduate of Columbia Law School, where he served as Notes and Comments Editor of the Columbia Law Review. He has served as a visiting professor at Columbia University, Seton Hall University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv University. Cantor is now a Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus at Rutgers Law School, where he taught for 35 years in several fields, including Bioethics. On the topic of the legal handling of dying medical patients, he has published scores of articles in law and medical journals as well as four books: After We Die: The Life and Times of the Human Cadaver (2010), Making Medical Decisions for the Profoundly Mentally Disabled (2005), Advance Directives and the Pursuit of Death with Dignity (1993), and Legal Frontiers of Death and Dying (1986).
Alan J. Lippman is a 1965 graduate of Hahnemann Medical College (now Drexel University) and was a Fellow in Medical Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Now retired, he spent his professional career practicing medical oncology at offices throughout New Jersey, and as an attending physician at four hospitals across the state. He was a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (now Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School.) Dr. Lippman served on the Bioethics Committees of the Medical Society of New Jersey and on those of the hospitals with which he was affiliated. He was Chair of the Institutional Review Board (Clinical Research Committee) at Newark Beth Israel. In addition to his clinical practice, Dr. Lippman has served on the Editorial Board of MDAdvisor, a periodical for the health professions, and previously as Deputy Senior Editor of New Jersey Medicine, the Journal of the Medical Society of New Jersey.