Published on: July 23, 2011

In the United States today, a quarter to a half of all deaths take place in health care facilities. Numerous studies have documented critical deficits in the medical care of the dying; it has been found to be unnecessarily prolonged, painful, expensive, and emotionally burdensome to both patients and their families. Yet, not enough people make the proper preparations to protect themselves. One easy way is to prepare and Advance Healthcare Directive. This is a legal document that makes your wishes known if you were ever to become incapacitated and unable to make crucial healthcare decisions for yourself.

This month, Pallium India-USA members were trained in how to bring this awareness and knowledge to the community. It was given July 20, by Jeanne Wun, Outreach Director of our partner Hospice of the Valley. In this informative and lively interactive session, we learned how to best talk to the community about this sometimes sensitive issue. Ultimately, it is about each person having a say in perhaps the most important medical decision they might make in his or her life. We now plan a speakers bureau so that we are able to talk in various languages to the community, thus ensuring no one is left unprotected.