Education And Awareness Of Advanced Directives

It is even worse when one is forced to make painful decisions about ending the support system provided by the health care facility due to prolonged stay in a coma. Advanced directive plays a major role in easing the burden off from the loved ones, when faced with the terrible consequences. Medlineplus (2016), states that the advance directives are legal documents that allow an individual to make decisions about the end-of-life care ahead of time. Examples of Advanced directive are: durable power of attorney, designating a health care proxy, and living will, legally documented for treatment option if one is dying or permanently unconscious.. It also important to have the legal document to the right place, when a decision needed to be made. Advances directive is controversial when it comes to religion, tradition regarding the dying close families, friends and also, physicians. Although the advance technology has positive aspects in extending life longer, at the same time leave us dependent on others, unable to make decisions and in great pain too (Advances directive,2016)

As evidenced by this individual stating “Don’t wait until I’m so sick that I can’t make any decisions about my own body” (J, Nguyen, personal communication, November 20th, 2014). He would want to be able to determine and make his own decisions in regards to his own health like medical interventions – organ transplant, operations, and medications. Therefore, members of healthcare should discuss with the patient about their wishes if events such as palliative care would occur as most people do not have an advanced directive planned. Additionally, it is a part of our role as a member of healthcare to always inform the patient what is happening, why they are taking this medication, and be as honest in regards to the client’s health. I can understand how not informing them information regarding their illness and neglecting their concerns can affect them physically and mentally. Furthermore, this individual does not want to receive futile treatment; especially, since he works in healthcare and understands the cost of medical treatments. The individual was logically and able to reason that if it is not beneficial, there is no need to perform it. Research indicated that “hospital and 6-month mortality rates were significantly higher for patients perceived as receiving futile and probably futile treatment compared with patients perceived as receiving no futile treatment”

Secondly, the patient should be capable of making and communicating health care decisions for him or herself. Thirdly, the patient must be diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within six months.  Interested patients must also provide the request for termination in writing to the physician. In addition, physicians are expected to inform patients to alternative means of care including hospice care and other medications. Only after precautions evaluation, the laws then permit patients to make the ultimate life ending decision.

.“As medical technology continues to advance and health care choices become more complicated, the preservation of end-of-life autonomy is an increasingly important issue faced by various client populations.” (Galambos, 1998).

The topic of end-of-life care may seem daunting and uncomfortable, and yet most individuals do have unique desires and concerns regarding their provision for the future. Providing the opportunity for that communication, the advance directive and POLST forms allow an individual to explicitly state their wishes before the future. Developed to lessen the apprehensions concerning patients undergoing any extensive and unwanted measures to preserve life at any cost, these medical directives lighten the decision-making burden for physicians and families alike and help comply with the patient’s utmost end-of-life wishes.

(TCO D) A patient's family may be actively involved in end-of-life decisions for patients who are incapacitated or incompetent. Compare and contrast two legal cases that address the rights

Death is in a sense inevitable, we can’t escape from it. In today’s day in age, we are living longer than our parents and our grandparents due to medical technology. But there are so many ethical issues and complications that go hand and hand with death. There are two forms of death, cardiac and brain-oriented. Determining these two forms of death, along with the determined time of death is vital, simply because we don’t want to treat a living person as if they were dead. With so many issues concerning death, we have to protect those who are on the brink of death or terminally ill and can’t speak for themselves, but allowing them to make preparations for the future. Advanced directives makes this possible,

There are two types of advance directives: a Living Will and the Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care. A Living Will requires a witness or be notarized and consists of a directive that instruct the acting physicians to not utilize medical interventions in an instance that the patient is unable to make their immediate medical decision. The Living Will is the oldest form of advanced directives, requires a patient be terminally ill and it states that its interpretation is only to be assumed by the patient and their physician, there is never to be any family influence or interpretation of a Living Will. Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care is also witnessed or notarized and identifies an ‘agent’ to make health care decisions if the signer is unable to make their own decision. An agent is an individual that the patient chooses with great care, due to the amount of power/authority that is assumed to making such decisions. The Durable Power of Attorney does not require that a patient be terminally ill and is interpreted by the identified ‘agent’. There have also been known to be hybrid documents that combine elements of a Living Will and Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care that acts as an Advanced Directive. (Advanced Directives.,

This film explains the legal role of advance directives in end of life issues. An advance directive is “a written document directing how medical decisions are to be made in the future when the patient lacks decisional capacity and is unable to decide and choose” (Hanlon, End of Life Issues, Slide 28, Bullet 1). All three of the cases demonstrate the importance in filling out some form of directive. When there is nothing to go off of, it makes decisions extremely tough for families and medical providers. Having legal documentation of patient wishes helps understand what treatments they would or would not consent to. In cases like

Ethical dilemma may also arise in cases where a patient may feel their right to DNR should be carried out when giving direct order. The DNR process, however, is required to be documented by a physician. Andrew Putnam (2003) presents a case where an eighty-eight year old patient’s code status was DNR; “However, the patient has never signed formal advance directive statement or assigned durable power of attorney for her health care to anyone.” (Putnam, 2003, 2025) Ethics can be simply stated as doing the right thing (Roberts, 2002, 242); but in this case ethics is questioned because the physician was faced with the decision to carry out the wishes of the patient or to make a decision based on legality. In this case, it may have been morally right to carry out the wishes of the patient who wanted DNR orders carried out, but it may have been the right choice to do the legal thing and not carried out due to lack of signed documentation.

According to the publication Dying in America, “More than one-quarter of all adults, including those aged 75 and older, have given little or no thought to their end-of-life wishes, and even fewer have captured these wishes in writing or through conversation.” (pg 18)

Over the course of the semester, we have covered many interesting topics in this class. However, the one that I continually struggled to form a solid opinion on, and sincerely had to ponder what my decisions would be in the given situations, was the topic of end of life choices. My own personal thoughts and beliefs would conflict with my religious following, and my mind would continually change on such topics as whether or not physician assisted suicide should be legal, or whether or not I would want to keep living in a persistent vegetative state in the hope of a miracle recovery. I still struggle forming an unyielding position, but the information we have learned in this class has helped me learn more on these

I think that we as medical professionals will face legal risk if treatment is withheld. A nonbeneficial treatment solicitation is to build up a reasonable and unequivocal procedure to recognize and regard the perspectives of all gatherings included in conflict circumstances including treatment arrangement choice making. Another reason is to respect patient autonomy, and to regard the rights and expert commitments of doctors and different individuals from the medical group. Moreover, acknowledging differing perspectives is both a need and challenge in today's health insurance environment. In addition, this is especially valid toward the end-of-life is in question and feelings have a tendency to be high.

In the American culture, one of the most common dissatisfactions from patients is not feeling properly informed about their treatment. Patients in America want to feel involved, and if possible would ultimately like to make the final decision on the type of treatment and medications they will receive. Physicians work closely with their patients to make sure they have an understanding about the outcome of their health. However, there are times when patients are very ill, and are not able to make any type of decision concerning their health. Therefore, physicians will work with the patient’s next of kin to move forward with proper treatment. In American culture, it is fairly common for patients to have a written will, which makes decision making

The advance directive, or living will, is one way of circumventing the ethical dilemma of Quinlan, as it is essentially a set of choices by the competent patient if faced with different hypothetical circumstances. Patients can thus feel comfortable knowing that their competent wishes have been documented and can be easily interpreted in case of catastrophe. However, the authority of advance directives is a topic hotly debated amongst medical ethicists (see Advance Directive Authority). Arguments against directives state that not all factors are considered by the person creating the advance order. Also, in some cases of severe dementia, it is argued that the personal identity of the author is no longer intact and therefore has no authority over the treatment of the “new” person. The debate on this topic is extremely complex, but many of today’s cases are decided on an individual basis, with the directive often being upheld.