In Florida, Does Spoken word precede written DNR?

I have an assignment for my Issues in Healthcare class and this topic has to deal with End of Life Issues.

In this scenario, Mr. Jones (Not real name) suffers a heart attack at age 89 and is hospitalized. Before this, he was a very strong individual, mentally and physically and was performed handyman work for neighbors. His son, Dan (Not Real Name), discovers DNR papers in father's document, that were not disclosed to anyone. While in the hospital, Mr. Jones suffers another heart attack, one that is more serious and that necessitates a resuscitation. Dan does not disclose to physicians about the DNR.

Afterward, the physicians told Mr. Jones that he needs an aortic valve replacement as well as a triple by-pass. Mr. Jones states that he was in favor of having surgery if the surgeon would agree to perform it. Physicians advised Dan that he should "let him go" because of the advanced age and a "good possibility he would die in surgery", but Dan insisted it was his father's wish to live and that his father would be fine after surgery.

In this case, Dan finds a surgeon who performs the surgery and eventually, he improves his conditioned until Mr. Jones lives another 5 years until he suffers another infection and one that leads to a more painful death.

I wanted to know that in this hypothetical situation, if Mr. Jones did not inform the physicians that he had a DNR, then the physicians shouldn't be at fault, but if that was the case, then does his spoken word (his conditioned agreement on going through surgery) precede the written DNR. There is no indication in the scenario of how old the DNR form Mr. Jones had is.

What is Florida's ruling on this and who would be at fault, if any, for not disclosing this information?

EDIT: if anyone is interested in the full scenario, I can copy and paste the scenario here or possibly attempt to link it here. Thank you

EDIT 2: Found this in Florida stature:

"765.1115 Falsification, forgery, or willful concealment, cancellation, or destruction of directive or revocation or amendment; penalties.— (1) Any person who willfully conceals, cancels, defaces, obliterates, or damages an advance directive without the principal’s consent or who falsifies or forges the revocation or amendment of an advance directive of another, and who thereby causes life-prolonging procedures to be utilized in contravention of the previously expressed intent of the principal, commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084."

So Dan would be at fault in this case then?

Posted Feb 17, 2017, 3:50 AM UTC

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