20-403. Definitions.

For purposes of the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act, unless the context otherwise requires:

(1) Adult shall mean any person who is nineteen years of age or older or who is or has been married;

(2) Attending physician shall mean the physician who has primary responsibility for the treatment and care of the patient;

(3) Declaration shall mean a writing executed in accordance with the requirements of subsection (1) of section 20-404;

(4) Health care provider shall mean a person who is licensed, certified, or otherwise authorized by the law of this state to administer health care in the ordinary course of business or practice of a profession;

(5) Life-sustaining treatment shall mean any medical procedure or intervention that, when administered to a qualified patient, will serve only to prolong the process of dying or maintain the qualified patient in a persistent vegetative state;

(6) Persistent vegetative state shall mean a medical condition that, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty as determined in accordance with currently accepted medical standards, is characterized by a total and irreversible loss of consciousness and capacity for cognitive interaction with the environment and no reasonable hope of improvement;

(7) Person shall mean an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, limited liability company, association, joint venture, government, governmental subdivision or agency, or other legal or commercial entity;

(8) Physician shall mean an individual licensed to practice medicine in this state;

(9) Qualified patient shall mean an adult who has executed a declaration and who has been determined by the attending physician to be in a terminal condition or a persistent vegetative state;

(10) State shall mean a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or a territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the United States; and

(11) Terminal condition shall mean an incurable and irreversible condition that, without the administration of life-sustaining treatment, will, in the opinion of the attending physician, result in death within a relatively short time.

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