FOR PROFESSIONALS:
Coda helps you inspire patients to have early end-of-life conversations, providing them with resources to Take Responsibility, Choose Their Own Way, and Embrace Life .
In addition to our research-based GoWish cards, we have created a directory of tools for end-of-life conversations where you can find the solution that will work best for you and the people you serve.
A different side of Mom: Physicians May Find Themselves on The Other Side of The Equation
The patient, a 60 year old female physician, was suffering from breast cancer with metastases to
the lungs. She had two children, a son age 29 and a daughter 27, who had both just moved back
home to care for their mother. Now that the children were there, the hospice chaplain convened a
family meeting to discuss the patient's wishes. He suggested they use the Go Wish cards to help
ease entry into the conversation.
When the patient identified the things that were most important to her, her children were amazed.
Since she was a doctor and also a scientist, the children said that they expected her to be more
clinical about her selections and pick the cards having to do with the nurse and/or doctor, being
mentally aware or not being in pain. But, they were stunned when she chose cards representing
emotions like human touch, helping others, keeping a sense of humor, having family near and
not being a burden. They said this gave them a look at the emotional side to their mother, and
this led them to feel more comfortable in being able to express their own emotions about her
dying. They’d been afraid to hold her hand or tell her funny stories until the meeting with the
cards. It opened up a whole new conversation for them about death and dying and life in general,
and at the end of the discussion they all hugged.