Knowing More Can Sometimes Serve a Patient Less

Don’t  Tell Me When I am Going to Die

By B.J. Miller and Shoshana Berger

NY Times Op-Ed Piece, Sunday, June 23, 2019

When faced with serious [life-threatening] illness, being able to make decisions about the flow of information is one of the most life-affirming things you can do.

 Steve Scheier has created a tool to help you let your physicians and other caregivers know your wished regarding how much information you want to hear.  It’s a form called the Prognosis Declaration, and it allows patients to choose among a four options:

1)   Tell me everything.

2)   I’ve not decided what I want to know about my prognosis, so ask me over the course of my treatment.

3)   I want to participate in my treatment, but I don’t want to receive any information on my prognosis.

4)   I don’t wish to know any information about my prognosis but I authorize you to speak with [blank] about my case and for you to answer any questions that this person may have about my likely prognosis and treatment.

The Prognosis Declaration form is not a vote for denial; it’s simply an acknowledgment that knowing more sometimes serves us less. Because, no matter what we choose, we never really get to know everything.

B.J. Miller, the co-author of this Op-Ed piece, has had an interesting trajectory from student to doctor.  Spend three minutes with his “Brief But Spectacular” take on Living and Dying.