How You Leave is Just as Important as How You Live

Are you aware that most hospitals today have a full time position that is usually referred to as an "ethicist"? This is a person who you might want to get to know or, at least, know about. In this day and age with the increasing capacity of the medical profession to heroically extent life and with the growing interest in many states to adopt “right to die” or assisted suicide laws, the role of the ethicist is becoming very critical. Another dynamic that is amplifying the need for ethicists is the fact that parents today have more children than children have parents. This is the result of the fact that by the time death occurs a person could have had multiple marriages. Also a growing number of senior citizens are living together out of wedlock. Our pension and social security system is encouraging this dynamic as well as the changing mores in our society. It is not unusual for the medical staff at a hospital to assume that the other person waiting anxiously in the surgical waiting room is the spouse only to find out from a rather disturbed son or daughter that such is not the case.

Do you have a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care? Do you have a Health Care Directive? I hope so but, if not, that you will become motivated to bring these documents into being as a result of reading the articles and essays in this section. But I hope that much more comes from this section. I hope that you will think through all the When, Where and How questions that end of life issues raise and be sure that your documents reflective your deeply felt beliefs and wishes. And that, most importantly, that all the important people in you life are informed of and in tune and in agreement with your wishes. If this is not the case, you will find that others (impersonal others) will play a very large role in your end of life decisions. The laws of the state, the hospital rules, and the social dynamics of your state and economic imperatives of our increasingly federal and state driven medical system will have a big impact on the end of life decisions that are made in your behalf.



License to Kill PDF Print E-mail

Oregon case may signal the next wave in assisted suicide.

Most inhumanities start small, like the beginning of a tsunami, but then build, as "they head toward inevitable and unstoppable destruction.

It is difficult to pinpoint the precise beginning of the cultural tsunami that has devalued human life. Did it begin with the subjugation of women? Did It begin with slavery? The Nazis made their contribution with the Holocaust and Josef Mengele's hideous human experiments. Surely unrestricted abortion added to the growing list of Inhumanities.

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A Conversation with an Ethicist PDF Print E-mail

It is a rapidly growing trend for hospitals to employ an ethicist.   This person’s responsibility, among other things, is to handle the hospital’s compliance with local law as it relates to Durable Powers of Attorney for Health Care and Health Care Directives.  They are also responsible for the compliance with local law if those documents do not exist.  If you don’t prepare your own documents the state in which you reside will have in place a law that stipulates what should be done in lieu of you not having these documents.  I would strongly encourage all financial and estate planning advisory professionals to have a conversation with the ethicist at each of the hospitals that operate within the area they serve.  And I would encourage you to ask your financial and estate planning advisors whether or not they have had that conversation.  I will share with you now the conversation I had.  This will be in a question and answer format.
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Hospitals' Right to Refuse Care Needed for Life PDF Print E-mail

We reserve the right to refuse service: Most people have seen these signs at restaurants and retail shops. But now, metaphorically, some hospitals are hanging such notices over their entryways by promulgating "futile care" protocols that grant doctors the right to say no to wanted life-extending medical treatment to patients whose lives they consider lacking in sufficient quality to justify the cost of care.
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The Right to Live and to Die PDF Print E-mail

There is an increasing volume of voices being heard on the subject of the right to die.  It reached a peak some years ago as the drama of Terri Schiavo’s life unfolded before our eyes and ears on the national media.  It became the subject of Congressional hearings and Presidential involvement.  The fight to keep her alive or speed her death unfolded before the whole nation and world. 

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