by Amelia Walker

Created on: June 21, 2010

Most of the time, the best interest of the patient is decided by the patient himself/herself. The patient has authoritative autonomy, and if the patient is competent and an adult, he has full control of the procedures to be done to his/her body. Even if the decision is against overall benefit of the patient, the patient will still have the right to decide on what kind of treatment he wants. Thus, we can then assume that best interest is subjective to each patient? So when this is subjective to the patient, when the patient is incompetent and the doctor has to decide on what is in the best interest of the patient, it becomes rather difficult for the doctor who may have to rely on the patients' previous preferences or maybe decide to ask the family members.

The best interest generally can be said to be what is accepted to be best for the average person when there is no way of finding out what this particular person may want. The generally accepted best interest would be to save the life of a patient and to stop the suffering and the pain. However, in some circumstances, the patient may not want to be revived and the best interest that will apply to this patient would be to not be saved.

 Medically the definition of best interest does involve the respect of the person in question yes, but also, it will also involve the overall benefit to society. In cases of limited resources, when treatment becomes futile for a certain patient, then it will be in the best interest that the life support be removed from such a patient so that it may be put to greater use. This is true although it may sound inhumane and unethical. The medical definition of best interest focuses more on the treatment procedure and the medical benefits that can be accorded from this procedure. The broader conception of best interest considers the emotional of the patient rather than just the medical benefits.

 2. There are laws to decide on the patinets' capacity or legal competence, the most important of which is the mental capacity act of 2005.

The principles of the act is:

(1) A person must be assumed to have capacity unless it is established that he lacks capacity.

The person is thought to lack capacity if he is not mentally “normal”, or if the person is a minor, unconscious, in pain or in any way has some kind of influence that will have effect on his decision.  

(2) A person is not to be treated as unable to make a decision unless all practicable steps to help

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