THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 9, 1996 TAG: 9605080181
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Any doubts Betty Jean Cowan harbored about the value of a living will disappeared in the emergency room of Obici Hospital.
Two weeks ago her uncle - a heart patient she had cared for since 1991 - was rushed to the hospital with congestive heart failure. Thanks to the living will he had signed last year, Cowan knew how far her 87-year-old uncle wanted the doctors to go in prolonging his life. She was also confident that the decision to refuse a resuscitator or ventilator to sustain his life was in accordance with his wishes, allowing him to die as peacefully as possible.
Similar life-and-death decisions - how to approach them, how to talk about them, how to ease the process of making them - will all be discussed in a community ethics forum sponsored by Obici Hospital.
Next week's free seminar will feature six speakers on issues including quality of life, limits of medical technology, hospice care and pain control and the benefits of advance directives or living wills.
``People, especially doctors and patients, are becoming more open-minded talking about death and terminal illness,'' said Amanda Goodwin, Obici quality assurance director. ``In the last five years, we have seen more people with living wills, but they are still in the minority.''
During the forum, Goodwin will discuss advance directives, written instructions from individuals to their doctors and loved ones. They include living wills and durable power of attorney statements.
While a living will spells out one's wishes concerning life-sustaining efforts in a terminal situation, a durable power of attorney, naming a decision maker, may come into play in other severe but not terminal crises.
Neither form requires the services of an attorney, a point that Goodwin plans to stress, along with other legalities and benefits of preparing advance directives.
``The important thing is to have a conversation with your primary care physician while you are still healthy,'' Goodwin said, noting that people often prepare advance directives but fail to communicate their wishes to their doctor or to their named decision maker.
Elizabeth Bourne, a retired schoolteacher from Wakefield, has made her ideas known not only to her family but also to several friends whom she has encouraged to make living wills.
Twenty-five years ago, one of Bourne's friends had to decide whether to continue the life support that had already sustained the friend's mother's life for a long time. ``Such a horrible feeling to be so torn in deciding life and death and what an awful burden to put on a family,'' Bourne said. ``I decided to make my own decision.''
Bourne's first living will was a simple note stating that she did not want any mechanical life support in a terminal situation. Since then, Bourne and her husband have refined their wishes several times into a more formal living will.
Cowan said, ``At first the living will was a lot for my uncle and me to take in.
``I didn't want to let him go, and it was a bad feeling to sign it,'' the Whaleyville resident said. ``I was still struggling with it until he had his last attack, but then the communication we had had made the situation easier to deal with, and I had no reservations about the decision he had made.''
The Rev. Rob Vaughn of Providence United Methodist Church will address the worth of life during the Obici forum. ``Death is not a choice,'' Vaughn said. ``But how we experience it and how we deal with it are our choices.'' by CNB