A competent patient has the right to reject recommended treatments, even life-saving ones.

• A. True
• B. False
• C. Only for non-life-saving treatments
• D. Only with physician consent

Answer: (A)

A key idea here is patient autonomy: a competent patient has the right to decide what happens to their own body, including the choice to refuse treatment that could save their life. When a person is judged to have decision-making capacity, they can understand the information about a proposed treatment, appreciate the consequences of accepting or refusing it, reason about their options, and communicate a clear choice. If they choose to refuse, their decision should be respected, and the clinician’s role is to ensure they are fully informed and to document the discussion.

Understanding this helps explain why the statement is correct: refusing life-saving treatment can be a legitimate expression of autonomy. The other options fall short because they either deny the patient’s right to decline (False), restrict autonomy only to non-life-saving scenarios (Only for non-life-saving treatments), or imply that physician authorization is needed for the patient’s decision to stand (Only with physician consent).