Three basic modes for patients' clinical decision-making in China.

In China, there are three basic clinical decision-making modes for patients, namely patients' autonomous decision-making mode, family decision-making mode and patient and family codetermination. They were produced under the unique background of Chinese medicine, Confucian philosophy and law in China. In this paper, the concepts, advantages and disadvantages of these three decision-making modes were analyzed. In addition, some suggestions were put forward for the improvement. The first is that we suggest to establish standards for choosing decision-making modes; the second is to further learn and publicize relevant laws; thirdly, the legal system needs to be further refined; and the last one is to carry out ethical ward round.