How We Learn About Death, Part 1
Please join us in welcoming author, podcast host, and end-of-life educator, and atheist chaplain Terri Daniel as a guest contributor to the blog. (Continue reading ...)
6 Mistakes to Avoid When Doing Your End-of-Life Planning
Advice from hospice physician Karen Wyatt to make sure your exit is on your terms. (Continue reading ...)
10 Ways to Help Ensure a Peaceful Death
Only 10% of us will die in our sleep. For the rest, here is a list that can help facilitate a peaceful and painless exit. (Continue reading ...)
POLSTs and DNR orders are not Advance Directives
Patients complete advance directives without a physician's approval, though they may seek a physician's advice in doing so. Only a physician can issue a DNR order or a POLST, in consultation with the patient or surrogate. So long as the preferences and directives of patients are an integral part of the process, POLSTs appear to be a useful addition to late-stage medical care decision making (Continue reading ...)
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 ...)
Refusing unwanted medical treatment–Part 2
In Part 1, I provided an actual case of unwanted life-sustaining medical treatment (LSMT), listed Professor Pope's "Twelve Leading Causes of Unwanted Life-Sustaining Treatment," gave the causes of action that may be available for unwanted LSMT, and briefly discussed Physician's Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) and other similar documents used in various states. Here, in Part 2, I delve further into Professor Pope's research on unwanted LSMT. (Continue reading ...)
Refusing unwanted medical treatment–Part 1
An important right in managing end-of-life medical treatment is the right to make our own decisions, either directly or through a surrogate, about when to refuse unwanted treatments. No one has done more to call attention to the right to reject unwanted medical treatment than Thaddeus Pope, who tracks litigation against medical providers who treat patients in ways the patients do not want to be treated, in direct violation of their expressed written choices, their verbally-expressed decisions, or the decisions of their medical agents. (Continue reading ...)
POLST: Avoid The Seven Deadly Sins
The POLST — or Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment — Paradigm has become a powerful tool for identifying and honoring the goals of care of seriously ill or frail individuals. But that power can be turned against patients if health care providers misunderstand or misuse it. Each of these seven deadly sins require resolute reconsideration for redemption. (Continue reading ...)