To avoid unwanted medical treatment: choose a bulldog surrogate to fight for you
"Your choice of surrogate may be more important than your living will."
Making Your Final Wishes Known
A new workbook by a Minneapolis cardiologist offers guidance and reflective prompts to prepare for conversations with loved ones about end-of-life topics.
Who Needs An Elder Law Attorney?
"Does the contract allow you to have access to your own doctors? What is the facility’s position on VSED? If you enter hospice, will they commit to providing adequate pain relief? If you live in a state with MAiD, will the facility cooperate?"
Dying: You Have One Chance To Get It Right
"Many of the individuals around the bedside barely know each other, and this becomes an environment of misinformation, mistrust, and hidden agendas about substantial financial and estate issues ... as ex-wives and ex-husbands, half siblings who never knew each other, long-time same-sex partners (surprise, who knew?), in-laws, out-laws show up at the bedside." -- Dr. Edward T. Creagan, M.D.
LGBTQ+ End-of-Life Planning
"This committed couple who loved each other through life's ups and downs were separated when Pat breathed her final breath."
Having Dementia Wishes Followed
"Whose wishes for his medical treatment were we to honor? Those of my father back when he was a healthy, highly functioning geneticist? Or those of the simpler, weakened man my father had become?"
It’s Time for Physicians to Tackle Advance Care Medical Planning
"If these five reasons don’t make a strong enough case for physicians to engage with their patients in advance care planning, here’s one more: it is simply the right thing to do."
Thoughts On A “Good Death”
"I have the privilege to learn and hear interesting perspectives, along with all the questions and comments that our community members have, on the topics of death and dying. Here are a few insights I have gleaned from these discussions."
How Not To Die In The E.R.
"There should be a JLMA form: Just Leave Me Alone, for those of us who concede that we’re actually going to die some day and work to keep our end-times as inexpensive and comfortable as possible."
How To Tell Your Loved Ones
"One of the most common questions asked by people considering ending their suffering is how to start the conversation with family members and friends."