‘The best conversation ever’ Lutherans lead in advance directives
Nancy Graham, a registered nurse in Gundersen Health System palliative care in La Crosse, Wis., visits with a couple about advance directives.
patients’ wishes were unknown. Patients were typically older, per- haps had an illness and had been under the care of a local doctor for years. But when death drew near, the family was oſten in anguish about what to do, about what mom or dad would have wanted. Hammes, who describes himself
By Julie B. Sevig P
aul and Judy Ulland are in their early 60s and admit they “needed a little push” when
it came to filling out their advance directives. But they did, along with other
members of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, La Crescent, Minn., who were encouraged to do so by then-parish nurse Linnea Jackson. “We appreciated the church giv-
ing us the opportunity and making it convenient,” Paul said. But they aren’t the only ones in
La Crescent—or this area of South- eastern Minnesota and along the western border of Wisconsin—to do this. Just across the Mississippi River in La Crosse, Wis., Gundersen Health System holds a prestigious presence and some staggering statistics. Some 96 percent of people who
die in La Crosse have an advance directive or similar documentation. Nationally only 30 percent of adults have documentation that outlines
28
www.thelutheran.org
‘Have the conversation with your family. Don’t just fill it out.’
end-of-life care—what steps should or shouldn’t be taken to keep them alive. In fact, last year National Public
Radio reporter Chana Joffe-Walt spent several days in La Crosse for a story titled “Te Town Where Everyone Talks About Death.” Te headline might be an exag-
geration, but the comfort level may not be. Bernard “Bud” Hammes, a
medical ethicist at Gundersen, is widely credited with this success rate. But he likes to point out that an ELCA chaplain, Dan Vinge (now deceased), started it all in the early 1980s. Hammes followed with a “Respecting Choices” program more than 20 years ago. Now he’s a world- wide spokesperson on the topic. In his career Hammes had wit- nessed the frequency with which
as “a philosopher by trade,” said he asked himself, “Could we do better? What would that look like?” Tese questions led to “Respect-
ing Choices,” a program of training leaders and teaching the commu- nity about advance directiv≠es, making them available and keeping them on file. Doctors, nurses, bishops and pas-
tors got on board. Families started to have conversations they had never considered. In her role as parish nurse,
Jackson jumped on the education and awareness bandwagon, writing newsletter articles, meeting people in their homes and designating a week- end at church to focus on directives. She even filed advance directives at church for members as a backup. “ ‘Have the conversation with
your family’—that was my big thing,” she said. “Don’t just fill it out.” What she didn’t know is how
beneficial this would be in her life. Her father, a doctor, was matter-
of-fact and didn’t like to talk about death. But Jackson and her hus- band, Rick, sat her parents down one Tanksgiving and had “the best
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52