Recently, the incident of pregnant women jumping off a building in Shaanxi has attracted the attention of all walks of life, and it has also set off a discussion upsurge on the rules of surgical signing. Experts said that in this case, the "authorization" of surgery is against the law and ethics.

According to the report, at present, the law puts forward new requirements for medical institutions and medical personnel with increasingly strict standards, but unfortunately it is not strictly enforced in clinic. Medical institutions have begun to generally use "alternative consent", that is, "power of attorney". It is against the legal and ethical principles to bypass the patient himself through a written agreement and the patient signs a "power of attorney" to authorize his family to make clinical decisions on his behalf.

Traditional civil law theory holds that personal rights are different from property rights and are not suitable for authorization, especially important personal rights, because they are highly dependent on others and should not be completed by others. The power of attorney will only take effect if the patient is unconscious or loses the ability to express his will.

If patients are conscious, they should not only seek the opinions of their families by power of attorney, which cannot be a tool to avoid patients and legal risks. In addition, the power of attorney cannot adopt the implied authority method, and the specific authorization items should be listed by express authorization, and the specific clarity should be judged by whether the patient makes different choices.

I hope these irregular systems can be abolished as soon as possible!