Research and understand their disease
“The purpose of a doctor or any human, in general, should not be to simply delay the death of a patient but to increase the person’s quality of life.”
Patch Adams
As a healthcare professional, and possibly as a patient yourself, you know better than anyone the strengths and weaknesses that exist in the medical and healthcare industry; particularly when a patient is dying.
You know that patients are living longer with a chronic terminal illness but often lack the quality of life they would choose. Many patients do not know they have options.
We want to support you to support them by reinforcing what needs to be said to prepare for the end of life. Patients need to know their prognosis. This can be a hard and uncomfortable conversation, especially if the patient does not initiate the conversation.
There is no right or wrong choice, and we do not advocate one form of treatment over another. We listen, educate and encourage the end of life patients and their families to get as much information as possible so their choices are fully informed.
Through the Dying Your Way website and the DYW Portal Program everyone is encouraged to:
The DYW Portal Program is comprehensive, covering the typical end of life stages like;
This is would be in my End of Life Doula “checklist”.
The End of Life Doula is a non-medical role. They are not medical professionals, but they are trained in end of life care and provide a needed service, to help coordinate and advocate for their clients and their families. To reach the most people the Dying Your Way website gives access to doula services online through the DYW Portal Program and individual teleconferencing with a certified End of Life Doula.
When I was working as a patient advocate for a client, I casually asked the Doctor performing the surgery how many of his patients did not have a family with them to review the post-operative instructions upon release. He told me about half!
This is anecdotal, but 20% of people over 65 do not have children. And even if they do, many adult children are too busy or too far away to support their loved ones when medical issues desperately need a third party. The need for advocacy is there.
We encourage you to explore this site to see if the information provided to the dying patient and their loved ones will fill a gap for your patients while reinforcing what you have been saying.
A good death is possible for all of us and creating a death plan is one step to making it a reality. This is in everyone’s best interest and while you’re there, create your own!
Claire O’Berry
Co-Founder Dying Your Way and
certified End of Life Doula
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