“Mission Creep” in End of Life Care? The Washington Post ran an article recently that looked at the provision of treatments to those who are at the end of life. Mission creep doesn’t benefit patients at the end of life explains Here in America, there is a deeply held belief that advances in medicine will Read More

Developments in Physician-Aided Dying Since Oregon adopted its “Death with Dignity Act” 20 years ago, four other states have followed with similar laws or court action: Washington, Vermont, Montana and California. Last year, legislatures in about two dozen states, including Nebraska, debated the issue. In Colorado, voters may see a ballot initiative on physician-aided dying Read More

Polarizing Politics Derail How We Talk About Death — Conversation Project co-founder Ellen Goodman examines the political debate surrounding California’s recent passage of legislation that will allow providers to prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients. Ellen writes that the polarizing debates about similar bills spreading across the country may hijack a broader movement to Read More

When the Patient Won’t Ever Get Better — A recent New York Times article by Daniela J. Lamas, M.D., relates the case of a 90-year old patient who arrived at the hospital by ambulance with a tear in her aorta wall, requiring emergency surgery. The surgery went well, but it was followed by a number of Read More

Patient Choice at End of Life Act — On April 4, 2016, The Nebraska Legislature indefinitely postponed consideration of LB 1056, the Patient Choice at End of Life Act that had been introduced by Rep. Ernie Chambers. Under the proposed legislation, an adult with the capacity to make medical decisions who has been determined to Read More

Doctors Die Differently — Recently, NPR did a piece on end-of-life discussions that cited a Stanford University study showing that almost 90 percent of doctors would forgo resuscitation and aggressive treatment if facing a terminal illness. An excerpt: “Dr. Kendra Fleagle Gorlitsky recalls the anguish she felt performing CPR on elderly, terminally ill patients. “It Read More

Is There a Trend in “Aid-in-Dying”? During the 1990s, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a medical pathologist, helped dozens of terminally ill people end their lives. He was the central figure in a national drama surrounding assisted suicide, and served eight years in prison as a result of a nationally televised event in which he injected a Read More

Doctor Assisted Suicide Pew Research Center has reported the results of a survey conducted last year shows that U.S adults are about evenly divided about laws that allow doctor-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman with terminal brain cancer, publicly announced her plan to take her own life soon after her Read More