The issues of “living wills” or (the preferred) durable power of attorney for health care should not be left to the medical profession alone… Until the 1950's, the majority of deaths in the U.S. occurred in the home. Since that time dying has largely been an institutional phenomenon. Why should dying be inevitably medicalized? (It is clearly a metaphysical event. The enfolded spirit leaves the body. [James 2:26] Inasmuch as the spirit is by definition beyond the method of natural science to measure, we depend only upon indirect measures.)
Pastoral counselors, prepare your church members for the inevitability of death. Prepare them in detail. Prepare in grisly detail. The techno-wonders of medicine so capture families that the hard, needful questions never get asked:
(a) what are the prospects for recovery without treatment?
(b) what are the prospects for recovery with treatment?
(c) what is the treatment like?
(d) what is life like with treatment?
(e) What is life like without treatment?
(f) how much does it cost?
(g) what kind of treatments are available to maintain function as long as possible?
(h) what kind of treatments are available to relieve suffering?
(i) why do I have to go into a hospital? what can be done there that can't be done somewhere else?
(j) will the family and close friends be allowed access if the patient wants it?
(k) bring up the issue of “CPR” or “Code status.”
Excerpts from Physician and Pastor: Co-Laborers
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