Email from Dr. Campbell:

Just wanted to be sure everyone was aware of this.  john

John E. Campbell, MD, FACEP
Medical Director
Office of EMS & Trauma
RSA Tower, Suite 750
P.O. Box 303017
Montgomery, AL  36130-3017
334-206-5440
 

from Joe Acker, EMT-P,MPH
Executive Director
BREMMS
 

An issue came up several weeks ago with age of refusal . While the protocols have not yet clarified the age of refusal Dr. Campbell sent to me the following text which does cause us to use 19 as the age of refusal , also please note that the refusal process must utilize on-line medical direction . Since many of our hospitals are not yet using a recorded line our suggestion would to be to use ATCC so all of the process is recorded to protect the patient , EMT , and the Doctor .

Dr. Campbell's text to me ( 3/23):
Joe: As you know, in the past I thought that if you had the right to consent to treatment you should have the right to refuse treatment and that was what was taught initially when we did the 4th ed. of the protocols.   However, legal corrected me and they say that while the law does set the age of consent as 14 with other exceptions, it makes no mention of right of refusal so we must fall back on age of adulthood which is 19.  In fact they spoke about this to the SEMCC.  This should have been clarified when we did the 5th edition update but at the time I thought we had already done it in the 4th ed. update.  The way the protocols (section 2) are currently written, if the patient is old enough to consent (14) but less than 19 and refuses care, the EMT is to call OLMD and follow his/her orders.  This puts the responsibility on the physician as it should be.   Please let your folks in BREMSS know this.   I will cover this when we do the June protocol update.  John