As a surrogate consultant, people often ask me for advice on the best advance directive (AD) to cover their medical and end-of-life (EOL) wishes. Unfortunately, the answer is not that simple. An AD is a “legally recognized” document usually containin…
For most care providers, having conversations about end of life comes with certain challenges. Most medical education prioritizes diagnosis and treatment of illness with the goal of extending life; therefore, it can be quite difficult to acknowledge wh…
As rising fourth-year medical students, we talked about caring for dying patients with Dr. Angie Anderson (AA), a pediatric palliative care specialist. An abridged version of our conversation is transcribed below. Lindsey Pileika (LP): Honored to speak…
An excerpt from Grief Connects Us: A Neurosurgeon’s Lessons on Love, Loss, and Compassion. Brené Brown describes the importance of allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and holds up the surgeon as an example of someone who is exempted from this by…
She was listless in bed with agonal breathing — only 63 years old. Before stage 4 colon cancer claimed my mother, she chose to come home to her house … her bedroom, where she’d stare out her window at the dogwood trees that symbolized the blood o…
“For physicians who lack experience in end-of-life counseling, the process can be daunting at the beginning. However, they can be confident that once they have obtained the proper training, preparation, and experience, these conversations will be…
“Now the room is silent as if nothing at all occurred. I stand watching the red stain forming on the pristine white sheet, mocking me in my failure. I trained at excellent institutions, survived residency, and served in combat. Now, here at a Lev…
Canadians with serious or progressive chronic illness are feeling especially vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has underscored how quickly circumstances can change. Talking about a serious illness diagnosis and the impact on life expectancy i…
Some years ago, my husband and I sat with his mother at her kitchen table and went over advance care planning documents her doctor had given her. She was in her mid-70s then, living independently but managing several chronic health issues. The document…
Physicians have gone toe-to-toe with death since the earliest days of the profession, even knowing that our efforts would often be futile. Over the past century, dramatic technological advances have nearly doubled the average American lifespan, and mod…
