Terms Used In Virginia Code > Title 8.01 > Chapter 8 > Article 2 - How Process Is Issued.

• Advance directive: means (i) a witnessed written document, voluntarily executed by the declarant in accordance with the requirements of § Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Agent: means an adult appointed by the declarant under an advance directive, executed or made in accordance with the provisions of § Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Arrest: Taking physical custody of a person by lawful authority.
• Attending physician: means the primary physician who has responsibility for the health care of the patient. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Declarant: means an adult who makes an advance directive, as defined in this article, while capable of making and communicating an informed decision. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Durable Do Not Resuscitate Order: means a written physician's order issued pursuant to § Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Health care: means the furnishing of services to any individual for the purpose of preventing, alleviating, curing, or healing human illness, injury or physical disability, including but not limited to, medications; surgery; blood transfusions; chemotherapy; radiation therapy; admission to a hospital, nursing home, assisted living facility, or other health care facility; psychiatric or other mental health treatment; and life-prolonging procedures and palliative care. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Incapable of making an informed decision: means the inability of an adult patient, because of mental illness, intellectual disability, or any other mental or physical disorder that precludes communication or impairs judgment, to make an informed decision about providing, continuing, withholding or withdrawing a specific health care treatment or course of treatment because he is unable to understand the nature, extent or probable consequences of the proposed health care decision, or to make a rational evaluation of the risks and benefits of alternatives to that decision. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Patient care consulting committee: means a committee duly organized by a facility licensed to provide health care under Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Persistent vegetative state: means a condition caused by injury, disease or illness in which a patient has suffered a loss of consciousness, with no behavioral evidence of self-awareness or awareness of surroundings in a learned manner, other than reflex activity of muscles and nerves for low level conditioned response, and from which, to a reasonable degree of medical probability, there can be no recovery. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Physician: means a person licensed to practice medicine in the Commonwealth of Virginia or in the jurisdiction where the health care is to be rendered or withheld. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• process: shall be deemed to include notice;

  2. See Virginia Code 8.01-285

• Sheriff: shall include deputy sheriffs and such other persons designated in § Virginia Code 8.01-2
• Terminal condition: means a condition caused by injury, disease or illness from which, to a reasonable degree of medical probability a patient cannot recover and (i) the patient's death is imminent or (ii) the patient is in a persistent vegetative state. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982