If you have an advance directive (in my office, that’s the Your Way workbook), and if you have a terminal or very serious illness, take your advance directive one step further and have your doctor convert it into “doctor’s orders.” If you have been in a hospital, then you know that all care is administered pursuant to doctor’s orders. Frequencies and dosages of medications? Check the doctor’s orders. Which therapies and when? Check the doctor’s orders. Type of diet? Check the doctor’s orders.
Ask your doctor to take your advance directive and convert it into doctor’s orders. That way, in an emergency, hospital staff will look in the chart and immediately see your directives, written in a format that they are used to.