For more information, visit
www.respectingchoices.org
describe advance directives. “I have seen the weight taken off
families when they can turn to the doc during this really hard stuff , but it’s already written down and dad’s already made this decision for us,” said Carrie Lapham, a hospice nurse at Gundersen. She said the community-wide
eff ort has “normalized” the very thoughts and discussion of death. Hammes, aware of the avoidance
of the topic, said advance directives are a gateway to “rich conversations,” such as the one in Jackson’s family. “T is conversation can’t remain
superfi cial,” Lapham said. “It’s intimate. It gets at the very quality of
FREE. L ae
Assembly.RWKS.org
Registration is open for the 2015 ReconcilingWorks Assembly & Reconciling in Christ Conference, “Until All Are Free.”
7/30–8/2 Minneapolis, MN
30
www.thelutheran.org
Author bio: Sevig, a section editor of The Lutheran, was asked by nurse Linnea Jackson if she has an advance directive. She does.
your profound values and beliefs.” T e payback comes in many
dimensions—and Hammes talks about two of them with the sort of gentleness you’d expect from a philosopher. T e fi rst is fi nancial. Most
patients with advance directives don’t want treatment that would extend their lives when the burdens of that treatment become high but the prospect of benefi t is low. T e result? La Crosse spends less on health care for patients at the end of life than any other place in the country, according to T e Dart- mouth Atlas of Health Care, which examines Medicare funding. Hammes and Gundersen CEO
Jeff T ompson want to make clear that this was never the intent, but it is the outcome: allowing patients to choose and direct their care oſt en results in a course of action that’s less expensive. T e other reason goes more to
the heart, and when Hammes talks about it his eyes fi ll with tears. A local man had come up to him days before to thank him, grateful that an advance directive had resulted in his wife’s recent peaceful death. “I didn’t know him but appar-
ently he recognized me from national publicity,” Hammes said . “Because the family knew the patient’s wishes, they were at peace in making the medical decisions at the end of life. Not in confl ict, not uncertain. As individuals and as a family, they could face this loss together.”
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