I realized that with my medical condition (link is external), it had to be someone who understood my condition, my philosophy about life and healthcare, along with knowing my long list of allergies to medications and foods.
This portion of the article highlights the importance of trusting the person that you chose as a health care proxy to respect your values and lookout for your best interest.
Further, a doctor, medical center, hospital, EMT, and even assisted living staff can make decisions regarding your healthcare, treatment methods and type of medical care to provide you if you are not married, over 18 years old, and do not have a health care proxy in place
Medical decision making has very specific in rules to protect the rights of the patient. The rules can vary according to a patient's age, marital status, and wether or not they signed a health care proxy document in the first place.
Who would decide what was best for you? Who would advocate on your behalf?
This is a scary question that most people in the United States have to consider at one point in their life. Trust in the person in charge of making medical decisions is essential.
Health care proxy: An advance medical directive in the form of a legal document that designates another person (a proxy) to make health care decisions in case a person is rendered incapable of making his or her wishes known.
The medical definition of a health care proxy- a legal medical document that transfers power of medical decision making from a patient to a trusted person.
The question each proxy should ask when making decisions on behalf of others is, who am I truly serving — the patient or myself?
This article really high lights the potential negatives of the concept of healthcare proxies and provides real life scenarios to help the reader relate.
In situations like this, the proxy (knowingly or unknowingly), is primarily motivated by his own need to have one last opportunity to repair the broken relationship and make amends to redeem himself.
This last situation suggests that a proxy could have personal motives for keeping a patient alive- in this case, a son was trying to keep his father alive due to his feelings of grief and guilt over the broken relationship. The father was being kept alive in the hospital even though the medical professionals had advised against it.
When the patient is unwilling or unable to make medical decisions, the health care proxy is activated and he or she is obligated to make all health choices on behalf of the patient. These may be related to withdrawing or withholding life support, instituting artificial liquid feeding, attempting resuscitation and even whether or not to participate in autopsy and organ donation.
Any decisions regarding the care and body of the patient are headed over to their health proxy, who assumes any medical decision making responsibilities from there.
Most of us will lose our ability to make medical decisions for ourselves in the last phase of our lives
This is an issue that may affect the majority of American people towards the end of their lives.