Doctors have important role to prepare people for end-of-life

Dr David Attwell, a family physician in Victoria, says the day will come when having an advance care plan will be as normal as strapping on your helmet before you go biking or skiing. He made his comments to the Globe and Mail newspaper, following the release of our new Doctors of BC policy paper “It’s Time to Talk: Advance Care Planning in British Columbia.”

Dr Attwell says too often in our society we fear discussions about the “D” word. He told reporter Sandra Martin: “If we are going to start a cultural change of normalizing discussions around end-of-life care, dying and death, we as physicians are best suited to initiate it because of the relationship and trust patients have in us.”

He notes this can be challenging for doctors who have spent many years training to cure people. Attwell and the other physicians who worked on the report hope it will “rip the shroud off the conversation about dying, normalize the process of making your wishes known to your family and health-care providers, help clarify what constitutes a legal document and encourage families to have open and frank discussions.”

Read the article in the Globe and Mail.