Had she been the family’s beloved old Labrador or suffering Boston Terrier, we would have taken her to the vet for a final loving, humane act, a choice unavailable to her family, doctors, or caregivers.
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When determining an ethical standard of discussing physician aid in dying (PAD) during medical decision-making, it is important to begin with the caveat that physicians are not ethically obligated to assist a patient in ending his or her life, even if the physician informs the patient of the right to do so.
If you’re a for-profit business in the hospice business, where is your profit coming from?
It’s time that we revise and refine our cultural lexicon around this emergent end-of-life practice. A medically assisted death definitively warrants a linguistic and conceptual category of its own.
On Saturday, February 18, 2023, when the Carter Center announced that former President Jimmy Carter would be receiving hospice care at home, I was both saddened by what this decision essentially means for the former president, and intrigued by the possibility of having broader discussions about hospice and, more specifically, end-of-life doulas.
The lawsuit does not attack the right of patients to access medical aid in dying, which is the heart of the bill. Rather, it challenges provisions of the law that require providers to inform patients of the availability of medical aid in dying, and to refer those patients to a willing provider if the patient’s primary provider is unable or is unwilling for any reason.
“We can’t keep up with our waitlist,” Arnoldy says of skyrocketing interest in the program. “The last time we opened up registration, the applicants crashed our system.”
Unconscious, Michael lingered for hours. His waiting children had no one to call for advice, but Michael had left instructions for this eventuality. Sobbing, his son Bill lovingly carried out his father’s wishes.
“The rest is up to you,” he finally said, ending the conversation for good. He didn’t have any more guidance, and certainly no more patience to talk about it. I was surprised. To me, it felt slightly irresponsible to leave all these decisions to other people.
She wanted to go out on a high note, and from her point of view, she did. But for her many friends, that note was exceedingly sour. Should we blame her? Maybe.
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