Advanced Directives

Nurses General Nursing

Published

I am a nursing student doing a paper on the ethical and legal issues surrounding Advanced Directives. I am interested in any insights, or personal experiences with regards to honoring patients "end of life decisions" and dealing with families/health care professionals/communities/etc. who do not agree with those decisions OR who have cultural/religious/etc beliefs that oppose the patients wishes. Thank you so much for any experiences you are able to share.

hollykate

338 Posts

My personal experience with advanced directives has been mixed. I have found that a family that is very opposed to the advanced directive generally gets what they want. What we (as a health care team) have done is to sit down- the MD, primary RN, and the family, and discuss in detail the prognosis, the advance directive and the patient- what type of person they are/were... We've had a lot more success in getting opposing family memebrs to honor these documents.

KSEFLINK

51 Posts

Hi- You might want to check at your local area hospitals to see if they have an ethics committee. I bet they have some documentation on cases and could also site some literature references for you!! I know the committee at my facility deals with these types of cases all the time. If you don't have success with your local hospitals, leave another message and I can put you in touch with someone!

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