Advance Directives – Page 9 – The Good Death Society Blog

March 29, 2020March 16, 2022

Living in the high-risk category in the time of COVID-19

We are all in the high-risk category for death because all living things die. However, each of us hopes to live a long, productive (however defined), satisfying life in the meantime. Covid-19 is causing many of us to reassess how long we may have left. (Continue reading ...)

January 26, 2020

Dementia directive confusion and obfuscation

Whether intentionally or inadvertently, a recent article in the Washington Post, written by a reporter with Kaiser Health News, provides confusing, incomplete, misleading, and perhaps inaccurate information about the choices a person with dementia may have. It dismisses legal issues by citing opinions from non-legal professionals. (Continue reading ...)

January 19, 2020

Understanding Advance Directives and their problems for dementia

On this blog, we have dealt often with aspects of advance directives. To prepare for using a dementia directive, readers may benefit from a discussion of the development of advance directives and problems with their language. References to several dementia directives or supplements are provided. (Continue reading ...)

October 13, 2019

Avoiding late-stage dementia with advance directive for stopping eating and drinking

Prof. Thaddeus Mason Pope explains the newly-effective Nevada advance directive that allows dementia patients to voluntarily stop eating and drinking (VSED) after loss of cognitive capacity, and suggests how it may be used in some other states. (Continue reading ...)

September 22, 2019March 18, 2022

Is a “good death” a viable option

Two weeks ago, I spoke to about twenty people at the regular weekly meeting of the Ethical Society of Austin (Texas). The topic was the seven choices available to a person who becomes afflicted with dementia. I began by asking what, for them, are the characteristics of a "good death." In about ten minutes, the group offered ideas that suggest a "good death" is a viable option, with some universal characteristics, in spite of some voices to the contrary. (Continue reading ...)

June 23, 2019March 16, 2022

Anticipating and Deflecting the Worst Effects of Our End-of-Life Milieu

FEN members, more so than the citizenry at large, are dedicated to the goal of dying in peace. However, I suspect that FEN members, very much like most everyone else, may inadvertently misconstrue the meaning of the phrase “to die in peace” and what it may take to achieve given our society’s end-of-life milieu.… (Continue reading ...)

April 14, 2019

The financial cost of ignoring advance directives

The earlier five-part series looking at Thaddeus Pope's analysis of the risks faced by clinicians who do not follow the advance directives of their patients has been augmented by a case that was recently settled for $1 million. The settlement was reported on March 28, 2019, in the North Coast Journal, Humboldt County, California. (Continue reading ...)

March 24, 2019March 25, 2019

Postscript to Professor Pope’s research into LSMT: ADs and surrogates

In the previous five posts, I discussed Professor Thaddeus Pope's legal research on life-sustaining medical treatment (LSMT) and end-of-life medical care. Two important points about advance directives (ADs) are not covered in Professor Pope's treatise because they are not issues that are normally litigated. (Continue reading ...)

March 10, 2019

Refusing unwanted medical treatment–Part 4: Physician liability

In Part 4 of this review of Professor Thaddeus Pope's analysis of liability for a clinician's providing unwanted life-sustaining medical treatment (LSMT), the focus is on on why clinicians perceive that not following a patient's preferences about end-of-life care carries little risk for them and looking at more recent successful causes of action against clinicians. (Continue reading ...)

March 3, 2019

Refusing unwanted medical treatment, Part 3: Why ADs sometimes fail

In this, Part 3 of my review of Professor Thaddeus Pope's paper about the legal issues surrounding unwanted life-sustaining medical treatment (LSMT), I focus on problems with advance directives (ADs). (Continue reading ...)

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