Controlling Your Own Life and Fate

In response to a series of comments stimulated by “Why is a Terminally Ill Man Being Kept Alive?” (Letters, Nov. 29), I suggest that none of these tragically futile and painful extensions of the dying process might have occurred had the victims taken advantage of a remarkably far-sighted California law which created a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care (DPAHC).

Unlike the living will, the DPAHC has firm legal status. One fills out a simple form in which one names a person (and an alternate) who has legal authority to make decisions regarding one’s health care at any time when one is too disabled to do so. In the document, which does not require the services of a lawyer or even a notary, one also indicates whether or not one wants heroic measures carried out under various circumstances.

In addition to these written guidelines, one can instruct the person who will hold the power of attorney in detail about one’s wishes. Had Janet Brown been designated as the DPAHC and had she established with her physicians on the day of her mother’s hospitalization that a “Do Not Resuscitate” order should be written, the Code Blue could never have been called.

Contrary to popular belief, neither physicians nor attorneys needed to control the fate of Janet Brown’s mother. Each of us has absolute control over the decisions affecting our own life or its termination up to, but not including, outright suicide. Further, that control can be exercised by a suitably designated loved and loving one if illness renders us incapable of deciding.

So, as always, prevention is the best strategy. Be prepared. Make out a DPAHC. Forms can be obtained from Sutter Publications, Inc., 44 Gough Street, San Francisco, 94103-1233.

DAVID H. SOLOMON, M.D.

Los Angeles