Comparing in pairs: Who is The Person You Can Trust to Follow Your Wishes?

One of the physicians, who had piloted use of the Go Wish cards, attended a family Thanksgiving reunion where he was surprised to learn that he’d been named as alternate agent for his step-mother-in-law in her durable power-of-attorney healthcare document. She’d named her own daughter as the primary agent. Wanting to see how this might work, he gave a pack of Go-Wish cards each to the mother and daughter. He asked the mother to pick out what would be her top ten concerns if she were near the end of life, and asked the daughter to pick from her pack the ten concerns she thought her mother might be choosing as the most important. When both of them were finished picking their top ten, they compared cards. The daughter had picked eight out of ten of her mother's top ten. As he watched the mother and daughter in an animated discussion about the mismatching two cards, he felt confident that the daughter was the right agent for her mother.