HSS Midterm Quiz UPDATED ACTUAL
Questions and CORRECT Answers
Advance Directive - CORRECT ANSWER - A legal document expressing a patient's preferences
for care if they lose capacity; includes living wills and durable power of attorney for healthcare
AMA Departure - CORRECT ANSWER - Against Medical Advice; a patient's informed,
capacitated decision to leave care against the physician's recommendation; requires documented capacity,
risk disclosure, and informed refusal
Autonomy - CORRECT ANSWER - A patient's right to make informed decisions about their own
body, free from coercion; the ethical foundation for consent and refusal of care
Beneficence - CORRECT ANSWER - The duty to act in the patient's best interest and promote
their well-being
Casuistry - CORRECT ANSWER - Case-based ethical reasoning that works from analogies and
precedent rather than abstract theory; asks "what is this case most like?"
Decision-Making Capacity - CORRECT ANSWER - A clinical determination of whether a patient
can understand information, appreciate consequences, reason about options, and communicate a choice;
task- and time-specific
Decision-Making Competence - CORRECT ANSWER - A legal determination, made by a judge,
of a person's global ability to manage their own affairs; rarely invoked and distinct from clinical capacity
Defensive Medicine - CORRECT ANSWER - Ordering tests or treatments primarily to reduce
legal liability rather than because they benefit the patient; satisfies the letter but often violates the spirit of
good care
Deontology - CORRECT ANSWER - Duty-based ethical theory holding that some actions are
right or wrong in themselves, regardless of consequences; associated with Immanuel Kant
,DNR - CORRECT ANSWER - Do Not Resuscitate; a physician order instructing staff not to
perform CPR; requested by patient or surrogate but must be written by a physician to be valid
DPOA-HC - CORRECT ANSWER - Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare; designates a
specific person to make medical decisions if the patient loses capacity; carries more legal weight than
next-of-kin hierarchy because it is an explicit exercise of autonomy
Elopement - CORRECT ANSWER - Unauthorized departure from a healthcare setting without
staff notification, capacity assessment, or risk disclosure; carries higher liability than AMA departure
Emancipated Minor - CORRECT ANSWER - A minor legally recognized as an adult for most
purposes, including medical consent, through marriage, military service, or court order; parents lose the
right to consent or access records
Ethics - CORRECT ANSWER - Externally validated, codified norms of right and wrong;
collective and professional in nature
HIPAA - CORRECT ANSWER - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act; protects
individually identifiable health information in any form; permits disclosure for treatment, payment, and
operations without patient authorization
Informed Consent - CORRECT ANSWER - The legal minimum for treatment authorization;
requires competence, voluntariness, and disclosure of benefits, harms, and alternatives
Integrity - CORRECT ANSWER - Alignment between one's beliefs and behavior; doing the right
thing when no one is watching
Involuntary Hold - CORRECT ANSWER - Legally authorized detention of a patient who poses
imminent danger to themselves or others; based on dangerousness, not capacity — a patient may have full
capacity and still meet hold criteria
,Justice - CORRECT ANSWER - Fairness in distributing benefits, risks, and resources; treating
similar patients similarly regardless of status
Letter vs. Spirit - CORRECT ANSWER - The letter of a law is its literal requirement; the spirit is
its intent and ethical purpose; good clinicians integrate both — practicing only by the letter leads to
defensive medicine, practicing only by the spirit risks recklessness
Mandatory Reporting - CORRECT ANSWER - Legal obligation to report certain conditions —
abuse, neglect, communicable diseases, credible threats of harm — regardless of patient consent or
confidentiality
Mature Minor - CORRECT ANSWER - A minor judged capable of consenting to specific medical
decisions based on capacity, not age alone; a legal doctrine that varies by state — Kansas has no broad
mature minor doctrine, relying instead on statutory exceptions
Morals - CORRECT ANSWER - An individual's internal, personal understanding of right and
wrong; private and subjective
Natural Law - CORRECT ANSWER - Theory that moral truths are built into human nature and
discoverable through reason; grounds human dignity and rights-based arguments
Nonmaleficence - CORRECT ANSWER - The duty to avoid causing unnecessary harm; the
guardrail that prevents beneficence from becoming overreach
Off-Label Use - CORRECT ANSWER - Prescribing an FDA-approved drug for a condition not
included in its approval; legal, common, and often evidence-informed, but requires sound clinical
judgment, informed consent, and safety monitoring
Paternalism - CORRECT ANSWER - Overriding a patient's wishes for their own good; weak
paternalism (patient lacks autonomy) may be justified; strong paternalism (overriding an autonomous
patient) is ethically problematic
, POLST / KMOST - CORRECT ANSWER - Physician (or provider) order for life-sustaining
treatment that travels with the patient across care settings; in Kansas, called Kansas Medical Orders for
Scope of Treatment
Shared Decision-Making - CORRECT ANSWER - The ethical ideal for preference-sensitive
decisions; treats physician and patient as equal partners incorporating values, goals, and cost
Surrogate Decision-Maker - CORRECT ANSWER - A person authorized to make medical
decisions for a patient who lacks capacity; should apply substituted judgment (what the patient would
want) or the best-interest standard
Utilitarianism - CORRECT ANSWER - Consequentialist theory that the right action produces the
greatest good for the greatest number; useful for population-level and resource allocation decisions
Values - CORRECT ANSWER - The bridge between ethics and morals; fundamental qualities —
honesty, compassion, respect — that both society and the individual hold important
Veracity (Truth-telling) - CORRECT ANSWER - The obligation to be honest with patients to
support trust, autonomy, and informed decision-making
Virtue Ethics - CORRECT ANSWER - Theory focused on character rather than rules; asks what a
person of good character would do; associated with Aristotle and revived in bioethics by Edmund
Pellegrino
Advance Directive - CORRECT ANSWER - A broad umbrella term for legal documents that
outline a patient's preferences for medical treatment in the event they lose decision-making capacity.
Ask-Tell-Ask Framework - CORRECT ANSWER - A three-step communication model for
information exchange and comprehension checking.
Cheyne-Stokes Respirations - CORRECT ANSWER - A distinctive breathing pattern characterized
by cycles of gradually increasing, then decreasing respiratory depth and rate, separated by periods of
Questions and CORRECT Answers
Advance Directive - CORRECT ANSWER - A legal document expressing a patient's preferences
for care if they lose capacity; includes living wills and durable power of attorney for healthcare
AMA Departure - CORRECT ANSWER - Against Medical Advice; a patient's informed,
capacitated decision to leave care against the physician's recommendation; requires documented capacity,
risk disclosure, and informed refusal
Autonomy - CORRECT ANSWER - A patient's right to make informed decisions about their own
body, free from coercion; the ethical foundation for consent and refusal of care
Beneficence - CORRECT ANSWER - The duty to act in the patient's best interest and promote
their well-being
Casuistry - CORRECT ANSWER - Case-based ethical reasoning that works from analogies and
precedent rather than abstract theory; asks "what is this case most like?"
Decision-Making Capacity - CORRECT ANSWER - A clinical determination of whether a patient
can understand information, appreciate consequences, reason about options, and communicate a choice;
task- and time-specific
Decision-Making Competence - CORRECT ANSWER - A legal determination, made by a judge,
of a person's global ability to manage their own affairs; rarely invoked and distinct from clinical capacity
Defensive Medicine - CORRECT ANSWER - Ordering tests or treatments primarily to reduce
legal liability rather than because they benefit the patient; satisfies the letter but often violates the spirit of
good care
Deontology - CORRECT ANSWER - Duty-based ethical theory holding that some actions are
right or wrong in themselves, regardless of consequences; associated with Immanuel Kant
,DNR - CORRECT ANSWER - Do Not Resuscitate; a physician order instructing staff not to
perform CPR; requested by patient or surrogate but must be written by a physician to be valid
DPOA-HC - CORRECT ANSWER - Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare; designates a
specific person to make medical decisions if the patient loses capacity; carries more legal weight than
next-of-kin hierarchy because it is an explicit exercise of autonomy
Elopement - CORRECT ANSWER - Unauthorized departure from a healthcare setting without
staff notification, capacity assessment, or risk disclosure; carries higher liability than AMA departure
Emancipated Minor - CORRECT ANSWER - A minor legally recognized as an adult for most
purposes, including medical consent, through marriage, military service, or court order; parents lose the
right to consent or access records
Ethics - CORRECT ANSWER - Externally validated, codified norms of right and wrong;
collective and professional in nature
HIPAA - CORRECT ANSWER - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act; protects
individually identifiable health information in any form; permits disclosure for treatment, payment, and
operations without patient authorization
Informed Consent - CORRECT ANSWER - The legal minimum for treatment authorization;
requires competence, voluntariness, and disclosure of benefits, harms, and alternatives
Integrity - CORRECT ANSWER - Alignment between one's beliefs and behavior; doing the right
thing when no one is watching
Involuntary Hold - CORRECT ANSWER - Legally authorized detention of a patient who poses
imminent danger to themselves or others; based on dangerousness, not capacity — a patient may have full
capacity and still meet hold criteria
,Justice - CORRECT ANSWER - Fairness in distributing benefits, risks, and resources; treating
similar patients similarly regardless of status
Letter vs. Spirit - CORRECT ANSWER - The letter of a law is its literal requirement; the spirit is
its intent and ethical purpose; good clinicians integrate both — practicing only by the letter leads to
defensive medicine, practicing only by the spirit risks recklessness
Mandatory Reporting - CORRECT ANSWER - Legal obligation to report certain conditions —
abuse, neglect, communicable diseases, credible threats of harm — regardless of patient consent or
confidentiality
Mature Minor - CORRECT ANSWER - A minor judged capable of consenting to specific medical
decisions based on capacity, not age alone; a legal doctrine that varies by state — Kansas has no broad
mature minor doctrine, relying instead on statutory exceptions
Morals - CORRECT ANSWER - An individual's internal, personal understanding of right and
wrong; private and subjective
Natural Law - CORRECT ANSWER - Theory that moral truths are built into human nature and
discoverable through reason; grounds human dignity and rights-based arguments
Nonmaleficence - CORRECT ANSWER - The duty to avoid causing unnecessary harm; the
guardrail that prevents beneficence from becoming overreach
Off-Label Use - CORRECT ANSWER - Prescribing an FDA-approved drug for a condition not
included in its approval; legal, common, and often evidence-informed, but requires sound clinical
judgment, informed consent, and safety monitoring
Paternalism - CORRECT ANSWER - Overriding a patient's wishes for their own good; weak
paternalism (patient lacks autonomy) may be justified; strong paternalism (overriding an autonomous
patient) is ethically problematic
, POLST / KMOST - CORRECT ANSWER - Physician (or provider) order for life-sustaining
treatment that travels with the patient across care settings; in Kansas, called Kansas Medical Orders for
Scope of Treatment
Shared Decision-Making - CORRECT ANSWER - The ethical ideal for preference-sensitive
decisions; treats physician and patient as equal partners incorporating values, goals, and cost
Surrogate Decision-Maker - CORRECT ANSWER - A person authorized to make medical
decisions for a patient who lacks capacity; should apply substituted judgment (what the patient would
want) or the best-interest standard
Utilitarianism - CORRECT ANSWER - Consequentialist theory that the right action produces the
greatest good for the greatest number; useful for population-level and resource allocation decisions
Values - CORRECT ANSWER - The bridge between ethics and morals; fundamental qualities —
honesty, compassion, respect — that both society and the individual hold important
Veracity (Truth-telling) - CORRECT ANSWER - The obligation to be honest with patients to
support trust, autonomy, and informed decision-making
Virtue Ethics - CORRECT ANSWER - Theory focused on character rather than rules; asks what a
person of good character would do; associated with Aristotle and revived in bioethics by Edmund
Pellegrino
Advance Directive - CORRECT ANSWER - A broad umbrella term for legal documents that
outline a patient's preferences for medical treatment in the event they lose decision-making capacity.
Ask-Tell-Ask Framework - CORRECT ANSWER - A three-step communication model for
information exchange and comprehension checking.
Cheyne-Stokes Respirations - CORRECT ANSWER - A distinctive breathing pattern characterized
by cycles of gradually increasing, then decreasing respiratory depth and rate, separated by periods of
