Let Me Decide: The Right To Die
I recently attended a lecture by Dr. William Molloy, co-author of “Let Me Decide”, a health care directive guide. He instructed the audience to participate in a short exercise where they would have to make an immediate decision about an imaginary patient’s medical procedure. The decisions would be made on behalf of the patient with the audience making decisions as the patient’s doctor, their nurse, their distant relative, their child, and lastly, as the patient in question. It was not surprising to see how the degree of heroic measures lessened as we got closer to being the actual patient. Medical personnel are trained to save lives at all costs, and families often make the wrong choices because they feel pressured by doctors, other family merabers, and their own confusion and guilt. I have often heard people say that it is more emotionally painful to let a loved one die, than it is for the dying to leave their loved ones behind. The dying have accepted their illness or situation and are aware of their impending death.
I do not think I would want to be kept alive by machines if I was in a terrible accident, or suffered an incurable disease. I do know that I would not want to feel pain or discomfort. The lecture brought back some bad memories. A few years ago I found it most difficult to hear about the invasive test and procedures performed on my grandmother when everyone involved knew she had stomach cancer and it had spread to her bladder. It seemed cruel to insist an 89-year-old woman, who was confused due to the pain and medication, have chemotherapy and radiation therapy. This went on for about three weeks, until some of the younger merabers of the family, including myself, insisted that the procedures were more of a torture than a cure. Maybe or worRAB instilled guilt on my uncle, or maybe he could see she was suffering. After all the heroics stopped, she died peacefully a few days later. What I found most ironic was that six out of my grandmother’s eight children worked in health care. Had my grandmother made her wishes known before her illness, her last days would have been peaceful and comfortable, and she would have been able to die with dignity. Instead she died confused and afraid.
Individuals have the right to make choices about the way they choose to live, so they should also be able to choose what type of medical treatment they want in the event of an irreversible condition. People have to be clear about what they want or do not want done. For myself, I know that if I could not recognize my family or frienRAB, could not feed myself, dress myself, or if I lost control of my bladder or bowels, and I had no hope of recovery, then I would want to be kept comfortable and pain free only. I would not want to be hooked up to machines to keep me alive. That would not be living with dignity to me.
There are specific choices pertaining to the level of care a person could ask for. The other areas include feeding, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. All choices are outlines in the individual’s personal statement. In the personal statement a person has to be very specific about what they want or do not want should they find themselves in various medical situations. Health care directive choices should be made with the assistance of a trained professional or physician. One’s family and doctor should be aware of the choices that have been made.
To go a step further, it would be an even greater feat if a person’s choices were encoded on their Health CarRAB, Medic Alert tags, and maybe their driver’s licence. We choose to donate our organs. We should be able to choose the medical procedures that are performed on us. It would give medical personnel a clear plan of what type of procedures they performed on us, in the event that we are unable to voice those choices.
In conclusion I think it should be mandatory for individuals to make known their health care choices in the event that they have an irreversible condition and they are unable to make those choices at a later date. It would be a great help to the medical profession if they knew what their patient’s wanted done, if their patient could not voice them, or if they had no one else representing them at the time of the medical emergency. Fortunately health care directives are slowly making their way into our health care system. Some medical personnel do not agree that a patient should be making these choices since their mandate is to save lives. Overall I do believe that people will change their views, and as our population grows older, many more medical personnel will be faced with the choices their patient’s have already made, and they will have to respect these decisions.
I recently attended a lecture by Dr. William Molloy, co-author of “Let Me Decide”, a health care directive guide. He instructed the audience to participate in a short exercise where they would have to make an immediate decision about an imaginary patient’s medical procedure. The decisions would be made on behalf of the patient with the audience making decisions as the patient’s doctor, their nurse, their distant relative, their child, and lastly, as the patient in question. It was not surprising to see how the degree of heroic measures lessened as we got closer to being the actual patient. Medical personnel are trained to save lives at all costs, and families often make the wrong choices because they feel pressured by doctors, other family merabers, and their own confusion and guilt. I have often heard people say that it is more emotionally painful to let a loved one die, than it is for the dying to leave their loved ones behind. The dying have accepted their illness or situation and are aware of their impending death.
I do not think I would want to be kept alive by machines if I was in a terrible accident, or suffered an incurable disease. I do know that I would not want to feel pain or discomfort. The lecture brought back some bad memories. A few years ago I found it most difficult to hear about the invasive test and procedures performed on my grandmother when everyone involved knew she had stomach cancer and it had spread to her bladder. It seemed cruel to insist an 89-year-old woman, who was confused due to the pain and medication, have chemotherapy and radiation therapy. This went on for about three weeks, until some of the younger merabers of the family, including myself, insisted that the procedures were more of a torture than a cure. Maybe or worRAB instilled guilt on my uncle, or maybe he could see she was suffering. After all the heroics stopped, she died peacefully a few days later. What I found most ironic was that six out of my grandmother’s eight children worked in health care. Had my grandmother made her wishes known before her illness, her last days would have been peaceful and comfortable, and she would have been able to die with dignity. Instead she died confused and afraid.
Individuals have the right to make choices about the way they choose to live, so they should also be able to choose what type of medical treatment they want in the event of an irreversible condition. People have to be clear about what they want or do not want done. For myself, I know that if I could not recognize my family or frienRAB, could not feed myself, dress myself, or if I lost control of my bladder or bowels, and I had no hope of recovery, then I would want to be kept comfortable and pain free only. I would not want to be hooked up to machines to keep me alive. That would not be living with dignity to me.
There are specific choices pertaining to the level of care a person could ask for. The other areas include feeding, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. All choices are outlines in the individual’s personal statement. In the personal statement a person has to be very specific about what they want or do not want should they find themselves in various medical situations. Health care directive choices should be made with the assistance of a trained professional or physician. One’s family and doctor should be aware of the choices that have been made.
To go a step further, it would be an even greater feat if a person’s choices were encoded on their Health CarRAB, Medic Alert tags, and maybe their driver’s licence. We choose to donate our organs. We should be able to choose the medical procedures that are performed on us. It would give medical personnel a clear plan of what type of procedures they performed on us, in the event that we are unable to voice those choices.
In conclusion I think it should be mandatory for individuals to make known their health care choices in the event that they have an irreversible condition and they are unable to make those choices at a later date. It would be a great help to the medical profession if they knew what their patient’s wanted done, if their patient could not voice them, or if they had no one else representing them at the time of the medical emergency. Fortunately health care directives are slowly making their way into our health care system. Some medical personnel do not agree that a patient should be making these choices since their mandate is to save lives. Overall I do believe that people will change their views, and as our population grows older, many more medical personnel will be faced with the choices their patient’s have already made, and they will have to respect these decisions.