While health professionals may be adequately informed about the legal aspects of many specialized areas of medicine and nursing, they may not totally understand the law applicable to cases of dying patients, or even the legal definition of death itself. In the wake of advances in medical technology, recent court decisions on the right to die, the enactment of natural death and brain death statutes, advance directives and living wills, and growing use of organ transplantation, there has been widespread concern about the legal and ethical issues surrounding these subjects. This book, written by a lawyer-thanatologist, will satisfy these needs. It is the first work to bring together case and statutory law applicable to dying patients, the right to die, advance directives, brain death, and organ transplantation, thus formulating a law of dying and death.

It is also unique as a self-help law finder. Although occasions that require consultation with a lawyer will arise, this work gives health professionals practical guidance on where and how to find legal materials on these issues. This book should also prove immensely useful in summarizing the law concerning dying and death for professional legal counsel. Medical decisions and issues that once were the sole province of doctors, hospitals, patients, and families have become matters of increasing judicial and legislative attention.