Category: End-of-Life

Death and Dying/End-of-Life/General interest/Health/Medicine
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Death, Dying and a Few Questions

by Fran Johns

Third & final report on a few highlights of the global conference ‘The End of Life Experience: Dying, Death & Culture in the 21st Century’ in Lisbon, March 2018

Question markWhat are the tough end-of-life questions facing the people of Australia? Pretty much the same as those facing the people of the U.S. Or the U.K., or Canada, or Portugal. A few of those discussed at the recent End of Life Experience interdisciplinary conference in Lisbon would include:

How, exactly, do we define death after all? Iona College Professor Vincent Maher, who holds a variety of degrees and whose career has included broad based legal, health care and non-profit sector experiences, presented a paper on the complex case of Jahi McMath. McMath was declared brain dead following surgery to correct a sleep apnea condition at Children’s Hospital, Oakland CA in 2013. She was 13 years old. Her family refused to accept the declaration of death and insisted she be kept on a ventilator. “Court interventions, news and social media exposure ensued,” Maher explains. “Fingers were pointed. What should have been a difficult but straightforward medical decision became a management, ethical and legal fiasco.” Eventually the family succeeded in having Jahi flown to New Jersey, one of two states (New York being the other) which follow a family’s definition of death. This policy was designed to accommodate Orthodox Jews, some of whom believe that the presence of breath signifies life. Jahi remains on a ventilator and feeding tube, with 24-hour care covered by Medicaid; her family still hopes to bring her back to California – where the coroner issued her death certificate in 2014.Grim reaper

Set aside the ethical, racial (McMath is African American,) financial and other questions, what is death? When the heart stops? When breathing stops? Or when the brain is dead? Medical technology can now keep a body functioning after brain death – organ donation is benefiting from this – but at some point, death takes over.

Can we keep control of our lives as they are ending? Increasingly, no, says Dr. Peter Saul, Senior Specialist, Intensive Care Unit, Calvary Mater Newcastle, NSW, Australia. “Dying in the 21st century in a wealthy country,” Saul says, “is now dominated by elderly people with significant disability, sometimes cognitively impaired, faced with making complex end of life care choices.” And those choices commonly follow “standard (medical) protocols and (are) in line with family wishes regardless of preferences recorded in advance care directives.” Australians, like the majority of people everywhere, would choose to die at home, Saul says; but “the entire structure and funding model of Western medicine greatly favors tertiary and hospital care over that provided in the community.”

Saul suggests that “the medical system at all levels would need to become proactive in creating genuine opportunities for choices to be available. This means asking more, offering more education, taking choice seriously and pushing back against a legal system that favors defensive medicine and over-treatment even in the same breath as pushing ‘patient autonomy.’”

So, is there anything hopeful on the horizon for the end-of-life experience? Definitely. Ottowa, Canada psychologist Morry Appelle and his wife, therapist Christine Appelle presented a paper on a discussion group they started five years ago “in an attempt to address more consciously and formally our own concerns of death.” They were surprised to find eager participants who became faithful, regular attendees, and who agreed to allow videos of some of their meetings to be shared. It is a remarkably effective way to confront mortality.

Planet earthThis writer left Lisbon urging the Appelles to publish a book about their novel idea, but you don’t really have to wait for the book. A group of friends or strangers willing to meet together for an extended period of time and simply talk through everyone’s fears and concerns offers an invaluable way to face, and embrace, life’s end. Such an experience could well lead to the patient autonomy and personal choice currently under threat in wealthier nations around the globe. It would undoubtedly help to have someone like Morry &/or Christine Appelle as facilitator. “Mostly,” they said about their experimental group, “we wished to look more intimately at the mystery of life and death, thereby dispelling some of its associated anxiety and fear. To the extent we could live out this life as fully and consciously as possible, we proposed that lifting the veil on death was a reasonable place to begin.”

The Lisbon conference did a lot of veil-lifting. Also lifted up? Questions worth pondering, wherever on this fragile planet we happen to be sharing our fleeting mortality.

Death and Dying/End-of-Life/General interest
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Appearances from Beyond the Grave

by Fran Johns

The End of Life Experience: Lisbon conference #2

Say you have a daughter or granddaughter who flunked out of her expensive school and caused severe friction between you. Now imagine you’ve been dead for a few years – OK, this page is all about imagination just now – and that errant offspring just finished a PhD program, with honors. She creates a hologram of you, calls it into being and holds up the graduation photos. “What do you think!,” she asks? “Oh,” you say, in your formerly mortal voice, “I’m so terribly proud of you. Congratulations!” You smile broadly, and your offspring smiles back.

holographic doveWelcome to the 2030s. Or probably early 2020s. Holograms are here, and the potential for use in after-death encounters is just one element of this technological wonder. That vision of the end-of-life/afterlife was offered by Sierra College professor Kim Bateman, at the recent conference I was privileged to attend, in a fascinating presentation titled “Dialogues with the Digital Dead.” Bateman suggested useful possibilities such as “allowing the dying to finish unfinished business and the bereaved to more vividly imagine their loved ones without a physical body.” But her intent was also to look at “ethical concerns about consent, privacy, and the emotional safety of those participating” in what today seems more science fiction than potentially useful technology. Conference participants had a lot to say.

If you watched the halftime show at this year’s Super Bowl (I did not, so this is hearsay) you saw a performance by the wildly popular artist Prince. Since he has been dead for some time now, it was not really possible to book him – but it was possible to create a hologram, and that was what you saw. Someone at our conference said Prince had actually been opposed to holograms – which raises ethical issues he is no longer able to discuss.

But here we are. These incredibly realistic holograms can be digitally, posthumously, created by, say, your children or grandchildren, Bateman explained. The computer digs through your electronic history: every email, voice mail, text, Facebook post, Instagram picture, etc, etc, etc. What emerges is the pre-death you.Holograph dancer

Should this bring about a posthumous reconciliation between you and your formerly deadbeat offspring, that seems a clear benefit of the technology. But as with most questions surrounding end-of-life issues today, a lot is not so clear. Your surviving friends and relations will continue to grow and change after you die. Not so the holographic you. It has you frozen in time as the pre-death you. What if you had lived a little longer and decided a college education wasn’t all that important? Here’s your hologram being pleasant, but reconfirming the mortal you as a judgmental grandma.

As with other contemporary end-of-life issues covered at the Lisbon conference, this one raised a long list of questions. Would you want to be recreated in a hologram after you die? For how long after you’ve been gone? To whom should you leave instructions pro or con – or should you stay out of it and hope for the best? If a holograph of you is created, with whom would you want it to interact? Or are there those with whom you would specifically not want to interact, holographically speaking? Should you have the right to make these decisions yourself, while you’re still in the flesh?

If these questions seem all too spooky and futuristic, I apologize – but the spooky future is upon us.

Death and Dying/End-of-Life/General interest/Health/seniors
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A Global Look at Death & Dying

by Fran Johns

Three things you and I have in common with the rest of the world: We are born, we live, we die.

Lisbon - Conference brochure
Conference brochure

Dying being so universal, it seems appropriate to talk about it. But the truth is we seldom do that, unless it’s happening to somebody else. An interesting group of people who do talk about it got together recently for a global conference in Lisbon I was lucky enough to attend, The End of Life Experience: Dying, Death and Culture in the 21st Century. It was put on by Progressive Connexions – Interdisciplinary Life, a not-for-profit network registered in the U.K. (Freeland, Oxfordshire) and a successor to the organization that ran earlier conferences I attended in Prague and Budapest. Full disclosure: Part of my motivation for the hard work of creating papers for these events is the mesmerizing pull of Prague, Budapest and Lisbon. That mea culpa is now out of the way.

As end-of life conferences go, this was the best. Not because any great, existential questions were answered, but simply because it proved so eloquently that we’re all in this life (and death) together. We struggle with the same questions about pain, loss and grief; we face the same dilemmas about aging, illness and dying itself. Whatever corner of the planet, whoever we are.

Lisbon - Castelo view
Lisbon at dusk

In my group in Lisbon were a couple of anthropologists, professors of everything from Philosophy to Nursing to English Literature, an actress/storyteller, some doctors & nurses & clinical psychologists, an interfaith chaplain, a textile artist – just lovely people from corners of the planet like Portugal, the U.S., Canada, Malaysia, U.K., Australia. Ordinary people sharing extraordinary insights shared below (and in subsequent posts on this page.) No attention was paid to titles and degrees – a very good thing for me, since an MFA in short fiction wouldn’t exactly be at the top of the list; attention was paid only to the voices, insights and generously shared thoughts. Here’s the first report:

Pain. Nobody gets out of life without pain, and since it’s often a big factor in end-of-life experiences, pain got its share of attention in Lisbon. Conference chair Nate Hinerman (a professor at Golden Gate University in San Francisco) submitted a paper titled “The Death of Hospice” which was in the first conference segment. Because he was committed to keeping to a strict time schedule – and this was a talkative group not easy to settle down – Hinerman skipped the actual presentation of his own paper. But it was appropriate to the broader issues addressed in the first segment, of which I was a part. There are some big questions here.  Pain

“I argue that as boundaries blur between palliative care, hospice care, and patient-centered curative care,” Hinerman writes, “ultimately, palliative care ought to the goal.” Palliative care means, essentially, do everything to alleviate pain – for patient and family alike. Focus on quality of life rather than life-extending treatments and technologies. “Patients do not benefit,” Hinerman says, “from boundaries like those, say between disease-centered care and palliative care. Or say between palliative care and complex chronic conditions management. Or again, especially between palliative care and hospice.”

In other words, are these fine points (which are eternally argued by professional groups – as well as insurance companies) focused on you and me – patient and patient-advocate – or somewhere else? Boundaries get blurred. “We still need policy changes to support this (palliative care) work, and payment structures to ensure coverage of palliative care.” Hinerman says.

Which brings us to another common theme: money. In both the formal sessions and in casual conversations throughout the conference, the issue of the almighty dollar was often raised. The problem of how to pay for healthcare needs is not confined to the U.S. But more common, and more complicated, is the also-universal question of distribution of finances. Such as: if we spent less on the last few days of life – emergency room and intensive care unit costs are significant especially in the U.S. – could we put those dollars to better use somewhere else?

Lisbon presentation
Doing my presentation

My own paper looked at two different models of Continuing Care Retirement Communities in the U.S. One is a church-related not-for-profit community with independent living, assisted living, nursing and dementia units. Newcomers must be mobile and reasonably healthy, and pay a substantial entry fee, but – as my brother-in-law remarked when he and my sister moved into a similar facility in another state, “the advantage is, they can’t throw us out.” The other is a condominium building in which residents own their apartments but buy into the management company, a national for-profit corporation which furnishes meals, assisted living in owners’ apartments, activities, etc. Both have substantial monthly fees; the condominium community’s are higher, but when a resident dies at least the heirs profit from the unit’s sale. CCRCs now number almost 2,000 across the country – and, while fairly well regulated, none of them are cheap. It is a very big business. One of my questions is: should these populations of aging and dying Americans, among the most vulnerable of groups, be caught up in a multi-billion-dollar enterprise? If something comes up that requires a choice between the aging residents and the bottom line, which direction do giant corporations usually go?

After my presentation, which was mostly a group discussion about such choices, a conference speaker from Malaysia approached me to apologize for not having participated. “In my home,” she explained, “if I were to allow my parent to live in one of those places, no matter how nice it might be, it would bring great shame on my family. Our culture mandates that the family take care of its aging members.” Ah, so. In our U.S. culture, that was also true as recently as two or three generations ago; but we have become so scattered, and so technologically and institutionally advanced, that living with family through dying is a rarity today.

All of the above offers more questions than answers. But they are universal questions and worth pondering: When you’re seriously ill and in pain, what kind of care would you choose? Where would you prefer to die, ICU or at home? Where will you spend the retirement years leading until you die? Pondering – and creating written plans – could avoid a lot of grief for you and loved ones alike.

Lisbon conference group
The 2018 EOL Experience Conference Group

 

Next week: The Lisbon Conference: Appearances from beyond the grave

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

in addition to supplying trained providers, and maintaining ongoing public engagement.We need to increase the consumer demand, and at the same time, continue to pursue palliative care with hospital administrators, so that those services can be bolstered.

End-of-Life/General interest/geriatrics/Health/Lifestyle/seniors/Women
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Aging, Guilt & When to Complain

by Fran Johns

One of an occasional series on the advancing years

It’s more than a little ominous: 85. I mean, look at all those good people who missed this mark in just the past few months or so: Oliver Sacks, 84 – just barely. Dead Poets Society founder Walter Skold, 57. Peter Mayle, 78. David Cassidy, 67. Stephen Hawking for heaven’s sake, 76. Approaching 85 is its own little why should I still be around anyway? season of guilt.

Guilt - Lachlan Hardy
(Lachlan Hardy)

So perhaps it’s only right that the impending milestone might involve a teeny negative or two. Guilt will do it every time. For me, it’s a nagging suspicion that this party is about to be crashed. On March 15th of my last turn at being 84, for example, I woke up at 5 AM, even before the alarm rang, to catch a flight beginning an overseas adventure. Everything went right. Bags properly packed. Good breakfast. All devices and power cords cross-checked. Problem-free trip to the airport. Zip through security. Thirty minutes before boarding time, when I heard my name being summoned to Gate 11 it was not even a surprise. Probably left my wallet at home, I figured, or someone just called to say the conference had been cancelled. It was so unexpected, this call, that by the time I reached the gate I was fully reconciled to having had too much good fortune for any one day. They wanted to offer me $500 on a future flight if I’d trade my Business Class upgrade. Such is the emotional hazard of approaching 85.

Then there is the limitations business. Pre-80, who worried about acknowledging limits?  Certainly not I. At 72 I signed up to run my first marathon, just because I figured everyone should try to run a marathon before hitting 75.Runner A bout with breast cancer intervened to mess up my training, but I got back on track at least enough to finish the half, feeling absolutely confident I could’ve kept right on going. (Although probably not for another 11 or 12 miles.) And then. One day in Paris, having inched past 80 with no further temptations into distance running, the ominous stairs challenge sneaked up on me. I had only recently moved, at the time, out of a 4-story house in which I was constantly zipping from laundry (ground level) to studio (4th floor) with nary a care. Thinking it would be fun to trip up the circular staircase to the top of Notre Dame right before closing time, I got about 30 steps and decided to let the rest of the group go ahead. More slowly, I climbed another 20 or 30 steps before my little heart said, “I don’t think so.” This would’ve been less embarrassing were not the Notre Dame lookout designed as one way Up, straight across, and one way Down the other side. Luckily for me the concessionaires were just closing up shop and let me follow them down the Up staircase, which is why I did not have to spend the night locked inside the cold stone walls of Notre Dame.Nob_hill_view

Ever since, I have begun to notice limitations on previously-negotiable San Francisco hills. If the heart doesn’t send out alerts, the lungs huff and puff their indignation. This happens a few times to my intense consternation, and I make an appointment with my doctor. I complain a lot. She orders tests that proclaim everything is just fine and dandy. She speaks briefly of the really sick people under her care, mentioning a few of their ages and afflictions. “You’re 84 years old,” she observes; get over it.”

How am I going to complain when I hit 85?

 

 

America Collection/caregiving/End-of-Life/Family and Friends/General interest/physicians/sisters
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Emergency Medicine Then & Now

by Fran Johns
cartwheels-sq
The author and sister Mimi, circa 1940

We were, I think, about six and eight. My sister Mimi and I came home from somewhere, hot and tired and thirsty. We leaned our bikes against the side porch and ran up to the French door – which was stuck tight, as often happened on muggy days. I gave the door a mighty wham. But I missed the wood frame I was aiming for and my hand crashed through the glass pane. I stood there saying “Oh my! Oh my!” until Mimi, who was wise beyond her years, reached through the hole, turned the knob and shoved the door open. I think I was still “Oh my!-ing” while Mimi lead me through the living room, hallway and dining room to the kitchen, splattering blood along the way. We grabbed dish towels, tied them around my arm, returned to our bikes and headed for the offices of our friend Dr. Enos Ray.

Like most small-town doctors’ offices in the 1940s, Dr. Ray’s office consisted of several rooms adjacent to his home – about 8 or 10 blocks from our house. He stitched up my wound, after listening to the story and rather cleverly asking if we had left a note of explanation for our mother. Oops, hadn’t thought of that. Mrs. Ray obligingly started calling around to see if she could find our mother before she encountered an unexplained bloody scene on coming home from somewhere Mimi and I didn’t remember. Dr. Ray probably sent our parents a bill for $5.

Scar
The scar survives

My memory of the entire  incident ends with the bike ride home, all beautifully bandaged and hoping we would see a lot of friends on the way. But the scar (now getting pretty dim amidst the blotches and mottles of seven+ decades) is a constant reminder of my days with the World’s Best Big Sister and a current reminder of the changes in healthcare over those decades.

 I was re-reminded recently. I am fond of remarking at the slightest opportunity that I still, in my golden octogenarian years, have all my original parts – give or take a few teeth. Two of those unoriginal teeth are in the form of very expensive crowns attached for the last 15 years to a far more expensive (not to mention painfully acquired) implant. Not long ago, they decided to swing slightly outward, without so much as a by-your-leave. After a moment of horror (and gratitude that this happened at breakfast with no one but a sympathetic husband at the table) I realized I could nudge them back to where they belonged. I took to chewing on the other side. I called my good friend, longtime neighbor and fine dentist Richard Leeds. He said I should make an appointment with his implant friend Dr. Chin. “You’ll really like Dr. Chin,” he said. “It’s kind of like going to see the mad scientist. But he’s the best.” So I waited until Dr.Chin returned from vacation. And indeed, despite the very proper and competent staff who welcomed me, there was something of a mad scientist to the good doctor. “Let me just peeeeeer around here,” he would say, reaching for strange radar-beam lights and x-ray machines, studying my jaw from every conceivable angle.

 Eventually, he said, “There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that you’ll Grinprobably need an expensive new crown. The good news is that the implant is just fine so you don’t need surgery, so you don’t need me.” Whereupon he shook my hand, said it had been a pleasure, and no, there was no charge.

 Later, summoned back to Dr. Leeds’ office – and anticipating future appointments for expensive new crowns – I thanked him for sending me to the charming mad scientist. He said he had a few not-so-mad-scientist ideas of his own. Whereupon he gave me a crash course in types of crowns and types of implants now in use, and explained that he thought he could screw my errant teeth back to where they belonged. The explanation was accompanied by several rather vehement maneuvers, and followed by extensive fiddlings around, bite-checking, tooth-filing and what have you. And lo, I am back to where I started with the non-original teeth and their original compatriots. Dr. Leeds will send a bill for considerably more than $5, but probably thousands less than a new crown would have cost. I could not help remembering the days of the de riguer family doctor and family dentist.

Sadly, it should be noted here that Dr. Ray has long since gone to his rewards, and Dr. Leeds is no longer accepting new patients. But given the precarious state of healthcare in the U.S., I can only be grateful for the extraordinary emergency care (Kaiser Permanente included) this middle-class American has been blessed to receive.

Would that healthcare were such for everyone.

End-of-Life/General interest/Health/Healthcare/Medicine/physicians
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Surviving to live another day

by Fran Johns

It started innocently enough: I was complaining about being short of breath at a dinner party. Several physicians were at the table; one suggested that it might be possible to increase lung capacity by doing exercises with a spirometer. “I’m not a pulmonologist,” he said, “so I don’t know; it’s just a thought.”

Incentive_spirometer

The thought was planted. I fired off an email to my primary care physician (we love Kaiser Permanente) asking if she knew of such a thing, and/or might refer me to someone to give it a try. She replied with a request that I come into the office so she could evaluate me. Well, grump, grump; all I wanted was a quick fix, but anyway. It takes all of about 10 minutes to get to the Kaiser Medical Center. I arrived for an 11 AM appointment.

The good Dr. Tang patiently explained that she did not prescribe via email. And because it had been 2 or 3 years since we last examined the heart/lung situation she would like to do another work-up, to see about this shortness of breath business. She went very lightly on the issue of my being 83 years old for heavens sakes, although she did mention she had 60-ish patients in worse shape than I. (This is a compliment, coming from one’s physician whom one reminds of her mother, although I was still looking for some magic way to walk uphill without having to stop and catch my breath.)

She then ordered a zillion blood tests, an EKG and a chest X-ray. Still grumping a little, I set out for all these, vowing that if even the smallest of lines appeared I would just come do it all another day. It took me roughly 3 minutes to get in for the EKG, less for the X-ray, and when I got down one more floor to the lab and pulled ticket #372 the automated voice was already saying “Now serving #372 at Station #4.” After dutifully following all these instructions, I went home to take a nap.

Within an hour, a voice mail message arrived from my doctor. “Your tests are fine, I don’t want to alarm you. But I’d like for you to come back in right away. Just tell the front desk you’re here.” Alarmed, I set out for the Medical Center once again. Lung cancer. Definitely. A spot on the lung showed up on the X-ray, and I will definitely die of lunch cancer in the immediate future. fear

Fortunately, the 10-minute drive didn’t allow too much time to contemplate my impending demise. “No, your X-ray is fine!,” she said. “Your lungs are fine! It’s just this one test that came back pretty high. It’s a screening test for possible blood clot. These tests are set very high because we don’t want to miss anything. Still, I want to be sure there’s no clot there that could indicate a pulmonary embolism causing your shortness of breath.” OK, I prefer not to have clots floating around in my bloodstream.

So does Dr. Tang. Whereupon she ordered a CT scan – which meant walking uphill a block to the hospital where they have those fancy machines (and radiologists to read what the machines report.) “Once you’re done,” she said, “come back to the office and as soon as we have the results we can talk about them.” I set out on the brief uphill walk. Pulmonary embolism. Definitely. Isn’t that what did in my mother at age 70? Embolism, aneurism, something blood-clotty. I’ll probably die of pulmonary embolism before I get back down this hill.Grim reaper

It is now close enough to closing time that most Kaiser people are closing up. But the CT scan people wait for me, hook me up to the dye thing and run me back and forth through the machine. I walk back downhill, mildly optimistic because nobody gasped while I was getting dressed in the cubicle several feet from the scan people. With nobody now at the receptionist desk, I walk into the nursing/examining room area and tell a smiling nurse that I’ll be outside if Dr. Tang needs me. And sure enough, in another 5 minutes – not enough time to consider calling the crematorium – she comes bursting through the door saying she’s so glad I waited.

“As I said, these screens are set very high so that we don’t miss anything,” she begins. “In your case, there was nothing to miss. It was just a false positive.” I exhale. We talk briefly about how I might increase my exercise regimen if possible – which might even address the shortness of breath issue; I concede that I am, indeed, 83.

On the way home, no longer planning to die in the immediate future, I count the cost: six hours, several hundred dollars co-pay. And I give thanks for our Kaiser membership, modern medical technology and my good doctor.

happiness

 

 

Authors/Celebrities/End-of-Life/General interest/Politics & Causes/Religion/Reproductive rights/San Francisco/USA
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Farewell to a Not-All-Bad Year

by Fran Johns

2016

Farewell to 2016? People all over the globe are saying good riddance.

There are those of us in the U.S. who believe that climate change is real, that the vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving and the vast majority of Mexicans are neither rapists nor murderers, that women deserve better than to be denied rights and casually groped. Even those who believe otherwise admit reason and decency suffered some killer blows in the past year.

Poor 2016. Throw in global goings-on with the Brexit vote and the tragedies in Syria, Venezuela and too many troubled spots to mention, and it would seem there’s not a lot good to be said for the year. But it actually wasn’t all bad.

For openers, there are the things that didn’t happen: Nobody let loose a nuclear missile that would have begun the destruction of the planet. The Mosul Dam didn’t fail. Northern California didn’t have the devastating earthquake for which it is overdue. Even the luxury tower set to zoom up and block this writer’s 7th-floor balcony view of the far-off San Bruno mountains didn’t materialize. (OK, we know it’s coming. New York developer has the right to build to 240 feet, but so far the city says he can’t have an exemption to go 200+ feet higher.) So from the frivolous – which a 7th floor view certainly is – to the horror scenario, 2016 could surely have been worse.

good-news

And as for the good news? Glancing back over the posts on this site over the old year is one way to find a lot of it. A random few:

Mutual support and understanding among different religions was alive and well in 2016, as it will continue to be in the new year – at least in much of the U.S. Several times I wrote about events sponsored in San Francisco by the S.F. Interfaith Council, such as the Thanksgiving Prayer Breakfast – at which an overflow crowd representing people of all faith communities reaffirmed their commitment to human rights, social justice and world peace before launching into a rousing chorus of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

Philanthropy is alive and well too. In May, a 3-year-old friend of ours decided to open his piggy bank and give the money ($32.60) to his two favorite charities: the local library and the hospital where he and his baby-sister-to-be were born. His philanthropy spurred several matching gifts. Who says you have to be a zillionaire to be a philanthropist and do good in the world?

More than once I wrote about one of my real life heroes, Dr. Willie Parker, an African American physician determined to keep abortion access available to those who are denied reproductive healthcare: most often poor women of color. Nothing will slow down Willie Parker.

justice

And speaking of heroes, In January I was fortunate to be part of a collaborative celebration of Martin Luther King Day, with a predominately white church and its predominantly black partner church, affirming King’s message that only light can drive out darkness, and only love can drive out hate. It’s only a small effort in one small part of the globe, but as members of the two communities work (and play and sing) together, light shines on racial injustice.

There have been other optimistic highlights, such as the Internet Archive celebrating its 20th anniversary. The IA is a mind-bending, increasingly successful effort to make All Knowledge Available to All, for free. Impossible? Believe. Another blog highlighted another impressive physician, Dr. Angelo Volandes, who was touring the country last year with his new book The Conversation. Volandes is on a campaign to end aggressive, unnecessary, unwanted and often cruel end-of-life treatment. What happens in emergency rooms and intensive care units during the last few days of life for millions of Americans is an expensive disgrace; Volandes’ efforts will help change that.

In August I was caught in the middle of Delta’s computer meltdown, and spent some interesting hours trying to get from Atlanta to San Francisco. What was worth writing about were the many acts of kindness among airport crowds. They reminded me of flying from San Francisco to Portland OR several days after 9/11, when it seemed everyone in America wanted only to be kind to everyone else.

That spirit is still here, somewhere; we just need to recover it after a bruising year.

world-peace-1

 

 

Authors/Death and Dying/End-of-Life/General interest/Health/Healthcare/Medicine/physicians/San Francisco/USA
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Talking Your Way into a Better Death

by Fran Johns
Angelo Volandes
Angelo Volandes

“If you do something to my body that I do not want,” says physician/author Angelo Volandes, “it is assault and battery. But if I do the same thing to you in (a medical situation,) it is standard of care.”

Volandes thinks this last is a bad idea. He is on a campaign to change the way American doctors and patients, and indeed the country at large, understand what is done to American bodies at life’s end. He spoke of this campaign, and his new book The Conversation that outlines it, at a recent Commonwealth Club event in San Francisco. When he’s not taking time out to promote the book and the campaign, Volandes practices internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and is on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. He is Co-Founder and President of Advance Care Planning Decisions, a non-profit foundation dedicated to improving patients’ quality of care.

“Ninety percent of people want to die at home,” Volandes says; “most die in hospitals. There is a misalignment between the type of medical care they want and what they get.” About this unwanted care? “If you’re in the hospital and get unwanted care you never bargained for, I still get paid for it.”

After watching too many patients endure end-of-life treatments he was sure they would not have chosen, Volandes started an unusual practice: taking every one of his patients to visit the intensive care unit, and some to visit the dialysis unit. Once they gained a better understanding of what some of the aggressive treatments – CPR, breathing machines, etc – actually looked like, the patients almost always moved away from “Do everything” to comfort care as their choice.

The basic change Volandes believes is needed begins with a conversation between physician and patient. Those conversations do happen, and there is now Medicare reimbursement, but few physicians find them easy, and few patients know how to inaugurate them or what to say. “Never did a senior physician have to certify that I could talk to a patient,” Volandes says. “The patient needs to know ‘What are the questions I need to ask? What are my options?’ Life’s final chapter needs to be written – but the problem is, I’m writing it (instead of the patient.)”

This writer has been advocating for individuals to write their own final chapters for over two decades. With others writing those chapters instead, the costs are monumental and unnecessary – and millions of Americans die after undergoing painful indignities they would never have chosen. Physician aid-in-dying – approved by a majority of doctors and 7 in 10 Americans and now legal in five states – is one key piece of the puzzle. But the elephant-size puzzle piece is how to get every one of us to make known, well before those “end-of-life” days arrive, what medical care we do or do not want.

Volandes’ conversations could put that piece in place. Every person alive who takes time for the conversation (and for writing it all down) will likely die a better death.

 

 

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