Just as for any medical procedure, conducting a meeting with families of seriously ill patients requires training and practice. Practitioners must develop skills in structuring serious-illness conversations and responding with empathy in emotionally fraught situations.
Timely, well-conducted conversations about goals of care in serious illness are associated with improved outcomes, including care aligned with the ill person’s values, less unwanted (and often expensive) care, improved satisfaction with care, and fewer mental health consequences for patients and families.
Children have also experienced the death of close relatives, but it often happens that we try to hide death from children in a misguided attempt to protect them. Far from helpful, this confuses children and prevents them from handling the pain of the loss they have suffered.
What is the highest good and who decides? Here are some reflections on that question from Lamar Hankins.
Please join us in welcoming author, podcast host, and end-of-life educator, and atheist chaplain Terri Daniel as a guest contributor to the blog.
Say hello to Althea Halchuck, FEN’s new surrogate consultant.
More FEN members share why they care about the right to die in general, and why they joined FEN in particular.
A call to action for anyone who is or knows a Minnesota resident.
Derek Humphry, co-founder of The Hemlock Society and Final Exit Network, reflects on the trend of using “completed life” as a reason for self-deliverance among the elderly.
