038 Crucial Conversations About Death with Dr. Kim Fisher

Smart Planning 101 with Nicole Wipp

Have you ever had to make the decision to let someone else die? Or even a decision for someone else to have a procedure that could lead to their death. Or, did your family have conflict around either one of these topics?

While we're healthy, it's really easy to ignore these issues. It is much harder to talk about them and even more difficult when someone gets ill.

But as my guest today will tell you, these are crucial and loving conversations, and having them can make all the difference. Dr. Kim Fischer is a board-certified physician anesthesiologist and an advanced care planning coach. She helps take-charge women in the thick of life get clear on what they want to happen should an accident or illness arise that renders them unable to speak for themselves in an ER or hospital. As an advanced care planning coach, Dr. Fischer supports you in having crucial conversations with your loved ones so that everyone knows your wishes explicitly and there is no ambiguity.

In this episode, we’ll explore:

• What questions to ask and think about, while having these important conversations with your loved ones.

• When, and how often, should we have these critical conversations?

• How can we empower our healthcare proxies to be our knowledgeable advocates, if we find ourselves in a situation where we can’t speak for ourselves?

• If these kinds of conversations are too difficult to have with our loved ones, who are the people we should reach out to?