Shannon Olsen

Professor Goran

Integrating Experience

14 September 2023

Being Mortal and Advance Directives

The documentary, Being Mortal, has influenced my thinking about the final days of life. Being able to tell someone about their mortality and even the time their mortality is predicted to be, will definitely be one of the hardest jobs I will ever have to do. I cannot imagine how hard it is to not give false hopes to patients and tell them the blunt truth about the reality of death. I think the documentary influenced the way I think about delivering news about death and how painful that would be to or even witness. Delivering heavy such as death, never being able to walk again, etc., is news that is hard to give but necessary to talk about so that patients have clarity/transparency of their situation. I do not personally have advanced directives. I do not have advanced directives because I honestly have not put much thought into what I want for myself after I am gone, and I also still not sure what I want a hospital to do for me in certain medical emergencies. I would say I do not have advanced directives because I have not thought about the subject too much at my young age. My grandparents, however, do have advanced directives. My grandmother has had advanced directives since she was 75 when she was first diagnosed with stage one lung cancer. My grandmother was a smoker and has COPD, lung cancer, and heart disease partly because of this. My Grandmother decided to have advanced directives when diagnosed with cancer because she started to worry about what would happen to her during medical emergencies and what would happen after if she were to pass. I have definitely discussed my passing with loved ones before. I know I want to be cremated as opposed to being buried, and I know I have mentioned wanting to be ventilated if necessary and in case of a medical emergency I would want everything possible to be done in order to keep me alive for as long as possible. I have not talked about the subject of mortality much with my parents because I have a hard time even thinking about passing or my family members passing. Mortality is definitely a sensitive topic for me that often overwhelms me with different emotions. Avoiding the subject is not always the answer but has been my answer for many years in regard to talking about death/mortality. I feel as though I have avoided talking about this topic. It is definitely a conversation to be had especially with close loved ones.