Putting pen to paper

Doctor: oh look thank you for coming back. Last time I spoke to you, and I’m glad that you came along too, (wife: thank you) we spoke about your long term health care and planning for that. So how have you gone with that? I noticed you’ve got some of the paper work there.

Patient: we have some of it filled in. There’s a few questions there, we sort of have to go through with you.

Doctor: okay

Patient: we both studied it together (doctor: yes). We spoke to all our children. Then we offered them the choice of whether they want to be, one or two of them wanted to be our power of attorney.

Doctor: right, okay.

Patient: but they feel they’re to close to us for that.

Wife: they didn’t want to do it.

Doctor: okay

Patient: so we decided then that we would ask a family friend of 30 years to be our power of attorney.

Doctor: okay

Patient: the nurse in the family was the one that asked the most questions which is probably natural.

Doctor: yes, and so you said that you have a family, a friend that you have decided to appoint as your power of attorney.

Wife: yes

Doctor: so how did you go about asking him?

Patient: oh well we have known him that long he was more than willing to help us.

Doctor: good. So how much detail have you gone into in the actual plan? There is quite a bit of reading here to do. So, what have we got so far?

Patient: we’ve filled out the power of attorney side of it. Ah, but we felt we needed a guidance whether we tick one, two or three.

Doctor: yes. absolutely.

Patient: we needed to know that (pause) what we ticked here gives us the outcome we want.

Doctor: Yes I guess that’s the issue isn’t? Knowing what the outcome is that you want. So I guess I can go through and explain to you what these procedures actually are in a medical sense and what circumstances perhaps they might be performed in and, and, and to you, I’d like to know from you what you feel an outcome is that is acceptable to you because of course that is going to vary from person to person.

Patient: person to person.

Doctor: in that first about cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR what it actually is and possibilities in outcomes. So, so when you understand what...

(phase out)

Doctor: okay. I’m glad we’ve gone through all that, and that seems to make a lot more sense to you now?

Patient: it does.

Doctor: yes. So I guess all that is left at the end now is to sign off on the, statement of choices form and then we will go through a little summary to make sure we have everything in order. Is that alright?

Patient: That’s fine.

Doctor: I just need you to fill in, just down there. So this is basically saying that the information completed above is a true record of your wishes, dated today. And you will need to sign it, and perhaps I could get you to witness for us since you’re here.