Tag: End-of-Life

empty hospital bed

The COVID-19 Pandemic Highlights the Necessity of Advance Care Planning

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Marian Grant

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the importance of clearly expressing personal wishes for medical care in emergency situations.

Health systems and providers across the country are seeing how important it is that all of us discuss our medical goals in advance. Not having one’s medical goals known in advance puts a burden on frontline clinicians and loved ones, because it leaves important medical decisions up to them.

You can and should speak up about the kind of medical care you would want, and tell doctors what matters to you. You also should tell those who matter most to you what you’d want if you couldn’t make decisions for yourself.

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COVID-19 Underscores Racial Disparity in Advance Directives

Stephen Wood Leave a comment

Cross-posted from The Hastings Center Bioethics Forum, where it originally appeared on May 26, 2020. 

By Stephen P. Wood

During a recent shift, I was the primary provider for a man in his 70s who was brought in by ambulance with respiratory failure. He had been sick for two days with a fever and a cough, weak and short of breath. The chest x-ray performed at his bedside revealed the diffuse, fluffy markings that are familiar signs of pneumonitis from COVID-19.

After giving him oxygen to improve his breathing, treating his fever, and running tests that are standard for COVID-19 patients, I clicked the admission button to cue him up for a bed. My patient and I then discussed goals of care and had a frank discussion about advance directives. He did not have an advance directive, but he knew he did not want to be resuscitated. He did not want to be put on a ventilator, go on dialysis, or receive artificial nutrition. He was quite clear and did not hesitate about these decisions. We signed the advance directive and filed it away in his chart.

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Social Workers and Chaplains at the Front Lines During COVID-19

Adriana Krasniansky Leave a comment

By Adriana Krasniansky

Like doctors and nurses, chaplains and social workers are critical members of hospital care teams who are adapting their workflow and adopting telehealth platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

However, much of their work requires navigating difficult and vulnerable conversions not well-suited for a video screen. This article investigates the unique approaches chaplains and social workers are taking to serve patients digitally in their times of need. Read More