KevinMD April 12, 2024
Are advance directives any better than they were four years ago when COVID was surging? Are patients still comfortable with being placed on ventilators? Do physicians better understand how to treat COVID as a serious illness?
Physicians provide emergency measures unless there’s an advance directive to the contrary. Only one-third of Americans have advance directives when “down for the count” with serious illness.
Most people prefer to die at home, but many COVID patients died in ICUs and were discarded in cooling trucks behind hospitals. An advance directive expresses the need to beat the proverbial “dead horse” in futile situations.
Advance directives often encourage individuals to consider The Five Wishes. As an emergency physician, I need patients to expressly...
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