Courage, Leadership, and End-of-Life Care: When Courage Counts

摘要

When death comes knocking now, it usually happens in a hospital or nursing home. We can't just put on our bedroom slippers and slip out the back door because we are too oftenhooked to machines with innumerable tubes invading our bodies, and are infused with mind and body-altering drugs in order to "try just one more thing." Unfortunately, all too often we die alone in sterile health care facilities. The cost of dying this way is so much more complicated than the poetic "striding" out the back door. Estimates for the cost of end-of-life care include numbers such as 27% of the Medicare budget, 10%-12% of the total health care budget, and 25%-40% of the cost can be saved during the last month of life with advance directives and hospice care (Emanual, 1996).