Dr Elizabeth Fistein’s article was published in ScienceDirect’s International Journal of Law and Psychiatry
Dr Fistein is a Fellow and Director of Studies in Clinical Medicine at Lucy Cavendish College.
Her newly published paper is a scoping review of case law concerning the support and treatment of people with a condition called Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS).
PWS is a genetic condition that causes intellectual disability and loss of the satiety response - which means people with PWS never feel full after eating, and often have an overwhelming desire to eat when they don’t really need to - which can cause really serious health consequences.
The aims of the paper were to review case-law from English-speaking common law jurisdictions concerning support arrangements for people with PWS with a view to identifying issues that have required the intervention of the courts., and to identify principles on which to base clinical guidelines relating to the issues identified, ensuring that such guidelines are consistent with ethical and human rights imperatives.
The paper can be accessed here.
Dr Fistein comments: “The reason that publishing this paper was good news for me was that it led to a really productive conversation with the teams who deliver care to people with PWS in specialist residential placements in the UK. I was able to help them to think about how to safeguard the people they are supporting without imposing unnecessary restrictions on their liberty. I’m now working with a current and a former medical student on an international survey of people with PWS, their families and the professionals involved in their care, to understand their views on how we should balance safeguarding liberty and protection from harm when developing treatment guidelines.”
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About Dr Fistein
Elizabeth is a Fellow and Director of Clinical Studies at Lucy Cavendish. She works in the School of Clinical Medicine, where she is responsible for delivery of the Professional Responsibilities curriculum (ethics & law, reflective practice, teaching skills, leadership & management, multi-professional team-working, patient safety and personal development).
View Dr Elizabeth Fistein’s DoS profile and intro video here.