Has being a nurse changed your outlook on...

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...how you would like your end of life care to be handled? After today I know I'd want care to be withdrawn if I ever got to a point that my pts were at today (terminal illness/stroke/vent/unresponsive). It just seems tortuous to put someone through all of that.

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Oh yes. I still need to actually draft a living will but I know it I'm at the point of needing dialysis, if I'm on a ventilator with a trach and PEG, if I have stage IV cancer, if I am diagnosed with Alzheimer's, the list goes on, then I don't want to stay alive.

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.

Yes, nursing has changed my outlook on end-of-life issues.

However, we are immersed in a death-defying, death-denying society with people who believe that death is the worst outcome possible. Believe me when I say there are things far worse than death.

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Specializes in LTC.

Very much so. People are led to believe that everyone can be saved. If your heart stops you just need a quick shock and you'll be immediately sitting up in bed talking to everyone, because that's what you saw on Grey's Anatomy. We see in media all the time stories of people overcoming horrible illnesses that 99.99999999% of people will never overcome. There's just too much misinformation about death and dying. One part of my job is going over POLSTs with new admits and I tend to be pretty honest when people ask questions. Chances of surviving cardiac arrest are slim.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

I'm with The Commuter: there are a number of things worse than death. And for my money, being tied down to a ventilator or existing, forgotten, in a nursing home are two of them.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, LTACH, LTC, Home Health.

Death is the ultimate freedom...no more worrying about family; no more worrying about complete strangers; no more worrying about an organizations bottom line (well, I don't do that anyway....too busy worrying about the complete strangers;)); and no more worrying about paying back student loans with cancelled shifts.

That being said, I don't want to die, but I'd much rather close my eyes one last time than to suffer in a bed at a facility that doesn't have enough staff to turn me every 4 hours even if their only task was to reposition all patients frequently. If I so much as need a blood gas, start the morphine drip on me and flush my heplock with Ativan!

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Specializes in Gerontology.

I want to get DNR tattooed across my chest, " no feeding tubes" across my stomach and " no enemas" across my butt!

i also want to put a sign over my TV that will say " no Kelly Ripca" ( or whatever her name is).

My biggest fear is to trapped in my own body, with someone else deciding when I get turned, when I get up and what TV show is put on my TV!

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Specializes in ICU/PACU.

Yes. Nursing has changed my thoughts on many things. Different outlook on life.

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Specializes in pediatrics; PICU; NICU.

Before I wen in for knee replacement last October, I made sure to make living will & appoint a healthcare POA.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.

Yes it has. Not just my outlook on my own eventual death but of family. I wasn't sad when my Granddaughter passed away, He was dying and was fortunate enough to pass in his sleep before suffering really started. As far as I was concerned his time of death was a blessing.

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We regularly inflict pain and degradation on our helpless and elderly. We subject them to things easily recognizable as cruel if the pt was a dog instead of a grandmother.

In the future, when people look back at this aspect of our "healthcare", they will be shocked and horrified. Particularly when they find out that we knew the "treatments" were of no benefit, and that the suffering far outweighed any potential gain.

Nobody in their right mind has EVER requested that we do to them what we do. Their family members might, or they even might if their brains are altered by drugs or disease. But find me an advanced directive that says:

  • Keep me alive no matter what.
  • Tie my hands down if you need to.
  • If I am so disoriented that I cannot understand what is happening, please assemble a team that can force my legs apart and stick a tube into my most private area. Maybe you will find a UTI so I can have some more antibiotics and spend even more time wallowing in the feces that caused it in the first place.

If anybody actually wanted this treatment, they would have asked for it when their brain was working.

Asking an oxygen starved frail pt whether they want a breathing tube does not count as informed consent.

In answer to your question- I don't think anybody can really see what is happening in healthcare and not have it affect them. You don't see this terrible "care" being inflicted on the families of doctors.

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Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.

Yes, it has. I'm in my 40s with no chronic medical conditions ... but I have a detailed advanced directive which I have discussed at length with my family.

And as a poster above mentioned, importantly, it has changed my perception of the path I am likely to pursue if I am medical decision-maker for a family member. But first and foremost -- I encourage THEM to think about end of life issues, and I will pursue at all costs adherence to THEIR expressed wishes.

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