End Of Life Care Essay

The End of Life: In Comfort and Care video deals with various instances where patients are on their end of life journey and must make important choices, often with the support from their loved ones (End of Life: In Comfort and Care, 1999). These decisions include having the autonomy to select where they wish to pass away, whether it be in a hospital or their home, as well as if they would like to be resuscitated or be kept alive through the use of machinery. Patients may also choose if they would like to take an aggressive medical approach and attempt to prolong their life or decide against doing so. Although many patients from the End of Life: In Comfort and Care video wished to live out their last days in the comfort of their own homes surrounded by the ones they love, the

Referring to the Medical Futility: Its Meaning and Ethical Implications journal by Nancy Jecker and Albert Jonsen, when judging medical futility, it is vital that physicians differentiate between effect and benefit in the instances of end of life care and should practice medical futility with a teleologic view in mind. Nurses and doctors have a responsibility of developing a form of logic when dealing with the frail emotions of a patient and their loved ones. Forming an idea of the way a patient perceives death is vital when assessing how the patient’s end-of-life journey should be handled. At the end of their lives, some patients may be more comfortable and accepting of the idea of dying, while others may not feel the same way. Thus, it is highly important for caregivers to figure out their patient’s thought process in order to make dealing with the process of dying a smoother