[What (abdominal) surgeons must know about aspects of autonomic decisions with respect to self-determination, advance healthcare directives and suicide].

Abstract

The right of patients to self-determination has become increasingly important in recent decades. In clinical practice, it finds concrete expression in the concept of informed consent, according to which medical interventions outside of emergency situations are only permissible with the consent of the informed patient. In the event that the patient later becomes incapable of giving consent, it is possible to document the patient's own treatment wishes in a living will or to appoint a trusted person as a proxy. The right to self-determination reaches its limits where the patient demands medical measures for which there is no medical indication, which are prohibited by law or which contradict the physician's conscience. The latter applies to physician-assisted suicide, which is legally permissible but which physicians cannot be obliged to perform.