Today's the Day to Talk About How You Want to Die
It's National Healthcare Decisions Day. Are Americans ready to discuss end-of-life care?
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Every day in hospitals around the U.S., doctors, families, and patients make difficult decisions about what to do as a patient's odds of recovering from an illness diminish. They weigh the possible benefits of another surgery or course of chemotherapy with the risks of those interventions, including how they might affect patients' ability to live the way they want to.
No one looks forward to those choices. They're even harder when people don't prepare their loved ones and doctors with frank conversations about their wishes. Less than half of Americans over 40 have "advance directives" to guide end-of-life decisions, according to a 2013 survey, and the number is smaller for younger people.