Spiro Nikolouzos case - Misplaced Pages

American medical ethics case

This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (June 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Spiro Nikolouzos (1936 – May 30, 2005) was a Texas man incapacitated from bleeding related to a cerebral shunt, whose care was the subject of an appeal of The Texas Futile Care Law.

Nikolouzos was hospitalized on February 10, 2005, at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Houston, Texas, and was in a persistent vegetative state. He was fed through a gastric feeding tube and respirated by a ventilator. The hospital wished to discontinue life support, allowing Nikolouzos to die. His family opposed this action and claimed the hospital's decision was related to the fact that Nikolouzos's Medicare funding was running out, a contention denied by the hospital.

Under the 1999 Advance Directives Act (also known as The Texas Futile Care Law), the hospital may override the family's wishes in such a matter should an ethics committee clear such an action. However, Nikolouzos's family won an emergency injunction preventing the removal of the life support apparatus, and on March 21, 2005, Spiro Nikolouzos was removed to Avalon Place Nursing Home in San Antonio, Texas. Avalon Place had rejected his application nine days earlier.

Nikolouzos subsequently died at Avalon on May 30, 2005.

The precedent set by the case of Sun Hudson may have helped to expedite the removal of Nikolouzos from artificial respiration prior to the move.

Sources

v t e Medical ethics cases
Assisted suicide	Betty and George Coumbias Dax Cowart Giovanni Nuvoli Sue Rodriguez Ramón Sampedro Piergiorgio Welby Jack Kevorkian
Euthanasia/ Withholding treatment	Andrew Bedner Tony Bland Paul Brophy Carol Carr Baby Doe Law Eluana Englaro June Hartley Vincent Lambert Robert Latimer Baby M Haleigh Poutre Karen Ann Quinlan Terri Schiavo Gloria Taylor
Medical opinion against parent/patient/guardian	Betancourt v. Trinitas Hospital Commonwealth v. Twitchell Mordechai Dov Brody Lantz v. Coleman Alfie Evans case Archie Battersbee case Charlie Gard case Tirhas Habtegiris Rom Houben Sun Hudson case Baby K Ashya King case Jesse Koochin Joseph Maraachli case Jahi McMath case Sarah Murnaghan Spiro Nikolouzos case Aruna Shanbaug case David Vetter
Informed consent to treatment	Ashley Treatment Gillick competence Marion's Case Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospital Christiane Völling
Research	Abdullahi v. Pfizer, Inc. Albert Stevens Albert Kligman's dermatology experiments David Reimer Deep sleep therapy Doctors' Trial Guatemala syphilis experiment Henrietta Lacks Human radiation experiments J. Marion Sims Jesse Gelsinger Joseph Gilbert Hamilton Moore v. Regents of the University of California Surgery to try to improve mental health Medical Experimentation on Black Americans Milgram experiment Monster Study Radioactive iodine experiments Skid Row Cancer Study Stanford prison experiment Study 329 Plutonium injections Tuskegee Syphilis Study Willowbrook State School Greenberg v. Miami Children's Hospital Research Institute

This biographical article related to medicine in the United States is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

This article relating to law in the United States or its constituent jurisdictions is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

Categories:

See also

Sources