Durable Power Of Attorney For Health Care Choices & Health Care Choices Directiv: Fill & Download for Free

Only long enough to determine if I would regain FULL brain function. Beyond that, no longer. And I will also take this opportunity to remind all my treasured QUORA friends that unless you prepare the equivalent of a Health Care Directive, i.e. Living Will, or Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care, in which you set out your wishes, you have no choice, and the doctors in most circumstances (in the US, at least), have to take all efforts to keep you alive, no matter the cost or possibility of recovory. Please, do a search for the form for your jurisdiction, fill it out, and give it to your doctor, hospital, and personal agent. And stay safe...I love you all.

I don’t ask a doctor their religious or political affiliation when I go to see them. The only things I ask are the following:1) Do you agree that a doctor/patient relationship is a partnership? The doctor knowing the medicine, and the patient knowing their body and how it reacts.2) Will you respect my religious beliefs and wishes, even if they conflict with your own?3) Will you be, at all times, open and honest with me? Never leaving out treatment options or glossing over the seriousness of a health issue due to your beliefs?If that’s all good, then we’re probably going to get along well. I don’t go to my doctor to get preached to. I also don’t go to my doctor to get half-truths, or to have them omit treatment options because it goes against their religious or political beliefs.Finally, I made a Living Will via Compassionate Choices - A Federal Attack on D.C.’s Medical Aid-in-Dying Law Threatens All Such Laws]Included in that Living Will are such things as a “Letter to my Doctor” that states the following:“It is important to me to have excellent and compassionate care - to stay as healthy and active as possible over the course of my life. At the end of life, my personal values and beliefs lead me to want treatment to alleviate suffering. Most importantly, I want to ensure that if death becomes inevitable and imminent, the experience can be peaceful for me and my family.If there are measures available that may extend my life, I would like to know their chance of success, and their impact on the quality of my life. If I choose not to take those measures, I ask for your continued support.If my medical condition becomes incurable, and death the only predictable outcome, I would prefer not to suffer, but rather to die in a humane and dignified manner. I would like your reassurance that: If I am able to speak for myself, my wishes will be honored. If not, the requests from my health care representative and advance directives will be honored.You will make a referral to hospice as soon as I am eligible, should I request it.You will support me with all options for a gentle death, including providing medications that I can self-administer to help my death be as peaceful as possible.I am not requesting that you do anything unethical while I am in your care, but I hope for your reassurance that you would support my personal end-of-life care choices as listed above.I hope you will accept this statement as a fully considered decision, and an expression of my deeply-held views. If you feel you would not be able to honor such requests, please let me know now, while I am able to make choices about my care based on that knowledge. “It also has a section regarding religious and other such institutions/hospitals:“ I understand that circumstances beyond my control may cause me to be admitted to a healthcare institution whose policy is to decline to follow Advance Directive instructions that conflict with certain religious or moral teaching.If I am an inpatient in such a religious-affiliated healthcare institution when this Advance Directive comes into effect, I direct that my consent to admission shall not constitute implied consent to procedures or courses of treatment mandated by ethical, religious or other policies of the institution, if those procedures or courses of treatment conflict with this Advance Directive.Furthermore, I direct that if the healthcare institution in which I am a patient declines to follow my wishes as set out in this Advance Directive, I am to be transferred in a timely manner to a hospital, nursing home, or other institution which will agree to honor the instructions set forth in this Advance Directive.I hereby incorporate this provision into my durable power of attorney for health care, living will, and any other previously executed advance directive for health care decisions.”As you can see, I take my healthcare options very seriously. They are mine to make, and I should be free to make them. I do not want my doctor to violate their own ethics (or the law), but if their ethical stance prevents them from following my wishes, then they need to transfer my care to someone who will be able to better follow my wishes, if possible and legal.A doctor-patient relationship is a partnership. I must do my part, as a patient, to listen to my doctor and follow their instructions to the best of my ability. By that same token, the doctor must listen to me and to how I report my symptoms and side-effects, and my limitations with regard to what I can and cannot do. I will not have a doctor that tells me that it is “My way or the highway”. If that is my choice, I will find a different doctor (unless there is a VERY good reason for that position - such as I will die without following their specific instructions).

What are some of the most twisted reasons a family would keep an elder family member alive?Facing death can be difficult and scary. The finality of death can paralyze family members into inaction. Personally, I would not judge a family’s reasons for wanting to keep their loved one alive.When an older adult is terminally ill, and unable to communicate their choice for continued medical care, health care providers try to find out how they would like to be cared for if they were able to communicate. Ideally, every adult should have an Advance Directive with designation for health care proxy or durable power of attorney and a living will.The following are the designations for an alternate health care decision maker.Durable power of attorney for health care- An individual designated by the patient to make decisions on their behalf if they lose decision making capacity. Usually a spouse, adult child, or sibling.Guardian- An individual designated by the court to make decisions on behalf of an older adult.Surrogate- In the absence of above options, this is usually a close family member or friend who has shown considerable interest in the patient’s welfare who is asked by the medical team to make medical decisions on patient’s behalf.If the medical team feels that the decision maker does not have the patient’s best interest in mind, but has financial or ulterior motives to keep their family member alive, then there are various ways to redeem this.No doctor is required to provide futile care. If a family member is requesting futile care, a physician can deny this.Health Care Decisions Act (which varies by state) grants powers to the Attending Physician to designate a surrogate decision maker who would make decisions on patient’s behalf.The medical team can request an Ethics Consult to offer perspective and resolve conflict.Though we try to avoid this, sometimes we have to go to court to protect the rights of our dying older adult.