Advance care plan

Advance Care Directives – do they really work?

An elderly man sits at a computer

Circling back to advance care directives, which we like to do regularly, newly published research shows: The study only involved 16 A&E professionals. But these take-outs show a lot more work needs to be done on advance care directives in Australia. “Experiences of Australian emergency doctors and nurses using advance … Read more

Who Am I Without David?

a single glass of wine

David, my partner of nearly 30 years always said that I was his ‘right arm’.   When he died suddenly while we were overseas, just over four years ago, I felt as though all I had left was my right arm.    My whole body, my whole sense of self, had completely turned on … Read more

The things people say

older women walking

I have just come through another Christmas without David and am being catapulted (it feels) into the forthcoming anniversary of his sudden death in Italy.   Being nearly four years in one would hope that I would not only be used to the variety of things people can say (both helpful … Read more

More questions than ever about advance care directives.

Who-speaks-for-us-when-we-cant-speak-for-ourselves

This article on advance care directives has been updated on August 5, 2022. Advance care directives are evolving – and there’s so much more to know beyond the usual questions of “Do I need to have an advanced care directive?” and “Who needs to know about it?” For example how … Read more

Professor Joe and ‘the inappropriate question’.

Prof Joe deals with the inappropriate question.

We love this one. Prof Joe is so clear and gentle…and he knows how to tell a good story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30eXWq80E00&feature=youtu.be For more from Prof Joe, including a range of brilliant resources, go to: https://www.profjoe.com.au/ For more good communication on advance planning, go to:

“We’ve been going about this the wrong way,” he says.

"We've been going about this the wrong way," End-of-Life-Essentials

Thank you to Deb Rawlings and the End-of-Life-Essentials team for sharing this. It’s a perfect video to wrap up our current bracket of advance care directive discussions. By reading this, you’ll understand just how different the scenarios can be in end of life planning – and the factors that need … Read more

UK insight into Covid-19 ICU

The Critical Care Unit - Health and Care Videos

So what sort of end of life decisions might need to be made if you suffering from Covid-19? Like advance care planning with other diseases, you are stepping through a series of “If, then”s. Here’s  information from the UK’s Royal College of Physicians about what happens in Covid-19 critical care. … Read more

Your Covid-19 team wants to know what you want.

Prepare For Your Care

We’ve found a good, practical, user-friendly resource that can help you with advance care planning if you become ill with Covid-19. The following message comes from, the US, one of the busiest countries dealing with Covid-19. Thank you very much to Colorado Care Planning at https://coloradocareplanning.org/ who helped us track … Read more

Is death painful or more like uncomfortable?

ELDAC is providing opportunities for aged care facilities to improve their palliative care - pic courtesy ELDAC

The subject of painful death came up during a recent discussion about the palliative care needs of the elderly. “It’s probably more accurate to describe the discomforts of death, rather than pain at death, since for most people it is uncomfortable rather than painful,” a palliative care nurse explained. That’s … Read more

Why CPR is often not compatible with a quiet death.

Death in the Sickroom by Edvard Munch

I’m going to show you contrasting end of life sick beds. I’m hoping these images will help you think about your end-of-life moment more realistically. The painting Death in the Sickroom, by Edvard Munch has the level of gravitas many of us imagine at our deathbeds. Everyone is very passive, … Read more

You only die once campaign starts

Kerri-Anne Kennerley, Margaret Rice talk about a good death. and Joe hildebrand talk about a good death

Updated 4 March, 2022. We’ve just had a wonderful chat with the team from ELDAC about end of life planning. They’ve asked us to remind readers to sign up to their ELDAC newsletter, which we urge you to do – (as long as you sign up to our Good Grief! … Read more

The ideal vs the real family

Norman’s children all believe they know what he would want when he is dying.

I picked up many, many gems of wisdom from North Sydney’s ‘Conversations about Death and Dying’ on Saturday, (May 25, 2019.) It never ceases to amaze me that no matter how much you think you know about a subject there is always so much more to learn.

My advance care directive is only short

Sheila Kitzinger's book A Passion For Birth is still available

My advance care directive is only short. I don’t want to say too much, be too specific and I’ve been very deliberate about this. Today I popped it up, sorting to the top of my list of computer folders. Of course I hope it won’t be needed for many years. But … Read more