Futility and Fairness: A Defense of the Texas Advance Directive Law.

The author offers a defense of the Texas Advance Directive Law (TADA). Topics covered include how TADA's approach achieves a balance that recognizes the physician's duty to provide competent and professional care that helps the patient and the value of respecting the preferences of patients and surrogates and how it offers a method for overriding futility judgments made by individual providers while leaving medical decisions to people who are trained and experienced at making them.