Advanced Healthcare Directives
Medical care practices advance more every day. Often these new advances lead to moral and legal questions that, previously, were so rare that they were not of concern to most. Put simply, our society is encountering situations that were previously thought impossible. The Law Offices of Steven Brian Davis have experience creating advanced healthcare directives in San Diego, which help to answer these questions.
These advances have necessitated different responses from individuals regarding their healthcare. An advanced healthcare directive in San Diego is a document created to outline the instructions regarding your care in the event that you can no longer make your wishes known. For instance, even if you are ruled legally “brain dead,” meaning that you do not have any brain function in any part of your brain (including your brain stem), your circulatory and respiratory systems can still be maintained with the aid of machines, sometimes indefinitely. Many do not want that to happen to them.
The advanced healthcare directive in San Diego (and in all of California) combines two important documents: a living will and a health care Power of Attorney. It allows a named agent to make decisions, sign consents and releases with the hospital regarding your care, and grants access to your personal medical records. Additionally, since it acts as a living will specifically dedicated to your end of life wishes, it can be used to represent your interests in court, should your family have difficulty making these types of stressful decisions.
In addition to outlining your wishes, an advanced healthcare directive in San Diego designates the person you wish to carry out those directions. This family member or friend is then responsible for your care. Decisions about your care do come with a lot of responsibility. However, the advanced healthcare directive takes that responsibility off of the shoulders of your family, whose emotional and mental state is often fragile in the event of your incapacitation.
Advanced healthcare directives in San Diego have the added benefit of avoiding costly and emotionally draining legal battles should your family disagree about your care. Consider the cases that come to the news, in which a mother is battling her son-in-law about one or the others’ strongly held moral decisions for their daughter or wife’s care. Each blames the other in that situation, but neither can know the patient’s will. The advanced healthcare directives save them not only the responsibility, but also the heartache that goes along with having to guess your wishes.
