In April, 91-year old Minna Buck revised her Advance Healthcare Directive. She doesn’t want to be intubated if she becomes infected with COVID. Ms. Buck has done her research and knows she doesn’t want any part of intubation. She knows that even if she survived, the recovery would leave her...
On August 1, New Jersey became the eighth state to allow doctors to prescribe lethal medication to terminally ill patients who want to end their lives. On Sept. 15, Maine will become the ninth. By October 2019, 22% of Americans will live in states where residents with six months or...
Oliver was visiting his son in San Francisco when he had a seizure. He was hospitalized at one of the area’s premier medical institutions where he underwent testing and treatment. Oliver had had a stroke several years before, so as a precaution, he always carried his medical records when he...
While Marilyn Friedman had always dreamed that one day she and her mother would have a closer relationship, it was not to be. Her mother had dementia. She forgot the word for “dog.” She got lost on the way home from the grocery store. She experienced hallucinations of flashing lights...
Meet the Yin family. At 83, mom was weak and ill from stage IV lymphoma and atrial fibrillation. She’d gone through exhaustive chemotherapy and she’d run out of options. Yet it was still a surprise when the doctors told the family that she had fewer than six months to live...
It’s been two years, and the assisted suicide law remains controversial The End of Life Option Act (EOLOA) went into effect in June, 2016, and it continues to be contentious. Opponents argue that it is both immoral and unconstitutional, that there is too much room for abuse. Advocates believe that terminally...
On May 15, Riverside Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Ottolia declared that the California legislature violated the law by passing the End of Life Option Act (EOLOA) in 2015 during a special session dedicated to healthcare issues, according to the plaintiffs in the case as well as advocates for the...
New ‘Instructions’ Could Let Dementia Patients Refuse Spoon-Feeding June marks the two-year anniversary of California’s End of Life Options Act (EOLA). Between June 9 and December 31, 2016, 111 patients were reported to have died following ingestion of aid-in-dying drugs prescribed under EOLA. While controversial, the law has stringent controls The law has been...
The following story from The New England Journal of Medicine illustrates the importance of not just creating an Advance Healthcare Directive and a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order, but making sure your family and healthcare providers are advised of and committed to your decisions. An unconscious man with a DNR tattoo...
April 16 is National Healthcare Decisions Day, so we want to emphasize the importance of advance healthcare planning. This is a difficult conversation—no one really looks forward to sitting down with his/her loved ones and talking about end-of-life planning. Instead, people tend to ignore it and keep it buried at...
April 16 is National Healthcare Decisions Day, so we’re joining the campaign to raise the visibility and encourage advance healthcare planning. Advance Healthcare Directives (AHDs) are written directions that appoint another individual to make healthcare decisions on your behalf. We’d all like to think that we could make our own decisions...
It was October 2015 when California voters elected to become the fifth state to allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with prescriptions from their doctors. This was not an easy decision; many remember months of contentious debate; religious groups and disability rights activists heatedly opposed the law and...
