Advanced Directives

Hello,
Today I want to mention advance directives. There are several types of advance directives. There are advance directives for financial decisions, medical or personal decisions and some cover both in one document. Every state has different laws and statutes. I attended a conference today on advance directives and one thing that really stands out from the conference is this. In the state of Indiana there is no special order of importance. If someone becomes incapacitated and they do not have a medical advance directive then the hospital or doctor will ask the patients spouse, parent, child or sibling for consents to treat and all are equal in giving that decision. Meaning if someone has more than one child any one of them could give treatment consents or permission to withhold treatment. So ask yourself is there a close family member or child you would not trust with your life?? Most people have someone in their family they would not want in charge of these decisions. Without proper documentation they many times are the loosers who are always home and would answer the phone when the hospital or doctor calls, cause everyone else is working.