Staring a conversation with anyone about advance care planning and end of life can be challenging. People are unsure how to bring it up and are unsure how to guide the conversation. One way to start is by talking to your family and friends about the death of a loved one, someone you know, or a celebrity. What are your thoughts on the care they received? How is that similar or different to the care that you would like to have?
Possible responses from your family and friends:
- Why are you bringing this up? You don’t have to worry about that yet. Can’t we wait and handle things as they come up?
- Why do we have to talk about this stuff? Isn’t that the job of the doctors to make these decisions?
- This is too hard and depressing to talk about.
Topics you may want to talk about when having the conversation:
After you have had the conversation, it is important to document it. This can be done by completing An Advance Health Care Directive Form. After the form is completed, you can give a copy to your local doctor’s office and the entire Health System will be able to view it. Please see our Create Your Advance Directive page for instructions on how to begin.