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How to protect Your End-of-Life
medical decisions
Newswise — In light of recent
events, many people are thinking about their own end-of-life medical
decisions and how to make sure they are honored. Harvard Medical
School’s newly updated Guide to Living Wills and Health Care Proxies
addresses just these issues.
This clear, easy-to-understand
report gives you all the information you need, including:
• Descriptions of living wills and health care proxies, and advice
on which you should prepare
• Information on how to choose your health care agent, the person
who will make decisions if you become incapacitated
• Tips on how to talk about this difficult subject
• Details on medical interventions you may want to think about
• Worksheets that will help you clarify your wishes for end-of-life
care
• Instructions on each state’s legal requirements
• The forms you need to fill out (and directions for finding
state-specific forms).
A Guide to Living Wills and Health
Care Proxies helps you know and protect your rights. “Many of my
patients know about health care proxies and living wills and
recognize their value. Yet they also imagine that these forms will
be difficult to understand, or require a lawyer’s help, and so they
just don’t get around to doing anything about it,” says Dr. Anthony
Komaroff, Editor in Chief of Harvard Medical School’s publications
division. “Our goal with this report is to explain what people need
to know, and to give them the tools to create a health care proxy or
living will in just a few hours, on their own.”
“Even if you’re in perfect health,
you never know when life may throw a medical emergency your way,”
Dr. Komaroff adds. “That’s why it’s so important to understand the
types of forms you need and how to make your wishes known.”
A Guide to Living Wills and Health
Care Proxies is available for $14 from Harvard Health Publications,
the publishing division of Harvard Medical School. Order it online
at
http://www.health.harvard.edu/LW or by calling 1-877–649–9457
(toll free).
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