Posted on 12/31/2011 1:35:33 PM PST by wagglebee
Dr. Alexander K. Smith is a brave man.
It has taken physicians a very long time to accept the need to level with patients and their families when they have terminal illnesses and death is near and we know that many times those kinds of honest, exploratory conversations still dont take place.
Now Dr. Smith, a palliative care specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, who also practices at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and two co-authors are urging another change, one they acknowledge would radically alter the way health care professionals communicate with their very old patients.
In a recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine, they suggested offering to discuss overall prognosis, doctorspeak for probable life expectancy and the likelihood of death, with patients who dont have terminal illnesses. The researchers favor broaching the subject with anyone who has a life expectancy of less than 10 years or has reached age 85.
(Excerpt) Read more at newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Yes, there is too many conflicts of interest when government is in charge of giving healthcare coverage and also mandating doctors to keep costs low, the patient will most surely get shortchanged. And we’re talking about a shortchanging that ends in death.
And notice congress and the president are exemoted from this perfect solution for all of us.
I want their health care coverage, that’s only fair. I don’t want any better care than they themselves would have, I’m not greedy that way. I’ll take the kind of care they decided to keep-
zot
Happy New Year all.
Thanks for the alert. He was wrong in just about every thread I saw him.
Happy New Year all.
“As an American I want the individual and his family to make that decision, not some idiot bureaucrat in Washington.”
Your point is -very- well taken.
But — what if I, the individual, suffering from severe pain with little or no hope of recovery, decide for myself that I’d like “assisted suicide”?
That’s a serious question. You have previously stated what you believe. Do I have the right to do this?
(Actually, I kind of liked the idea of “ethical suicide parlors” in Vonnegut’s “Welcome to the Monkey House”....)
Screwed up system where its any of your business one way or the other what services others may, or may not, receive.
I am not in the cost benefit analysis group, that is strictly in the realm of progressive thought, aided by a lot of morons that think they have a right to die with dignity.
John Ashcroft fought Oregon hard but lost. So we have come to the point that old people if they don’t fear going to the hospital, they should. Never sign a DNR, have a family member make that decision, because it is giving them permission to kill you.
I was in the hospital a couple years ago had some stents put in, and doc wanted me to stay overnight. Burly old floor nurse got really mad at me because I would not sign a DNR. They had a monitor on me which I unhooked about 1:00 am, no one ever came to check on me. So much for monitors.
The post was addressed to the now banned troll.
I only courtesy pinged you. I’m still working on how to let people I’ve courtesy pinged to know that the post isn’t addressed to them.
Thanks for walloping the cat. Have a blessed new year!
Welcome to FR.
*Assisted suicide* is murder plain and simple, only with a willing victim.
Nobody can stop you from killing yourself which is what suicide is. The minute you engage someone else’s participation, you have bloodied their hands with the charge of murder. That’s a terrible thing to inflict on someone, especially when they stand before God.
Calling it *assisted suicide* is deception to the person who is doing the assisting.
Yes, I figured that was the case. Hard to do unless you separate the wheat and chaff in the beginning. Old people sometimes forget what they posted 10 minutes ago, I know that may come as a surprise to some, but it is true {:-)
.
You may have the ABILITY to take your own life, but this does not make it a right. Moreover, you have no right to involve another person, but that is what you propose.
Thats a serious question. You have previously stated what you believe. Do I have the right to do this?
The right to life DOES NOT include any "right" to die.
I like to include a one line disclaimer, either the first or last sentence of my post, which reads like this:
itsahoot -- courtesy *PING* only.
Cheers!
I was thinking of something like that.
I usually operate on the first name in the *To* field is who the post is addressed to, and anything more than one name is a courtesy ping, if it’s not a ping list.
Discuss end of life wishes with the old? we docs already do this...
but the NYTimes is upset because blacks and other minorities refuse to sign living wills to let doctors remove wanted treatment that cost taxpayers money.
Yep, but the older I get the harder it is to remember.
I feel sort of like Mark Twain must have when he said his memory, as he got older was not so good as when he was younger and could remember everything, even things that didn’t happen.
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