The Advance Health Care Directive Assignment

The Advance Health Care Directive Assignment

Field Activity Paper
This paper will have three parts addressing two important pieces of legislation related to the right of individuals to make health care decisions for themselves.

Part I

The Advance Health Care Directive

Locate a copy of an advanced directive (AD) that complies with the laws of the state in which you work. The organization in which you work should have a copy of an advance directive that is given to patients. If not, download your state’s Advance Directives here http://www.caringinfo.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3289.

Complete the advance directive for yourself. Do not turn in your AD with your paper. The AD is for your personal use.

In your paper, Part I:

Identify where you obtained the AD and explain its compliance with state law.
Conduct research (1-2 sources) to learn more about the AD in your state and explain how it works.
Discuss how easy or difficult it was to complete the AD. Your comments should be specific and both objective and subjective. For example, when you state your personal feelings, you must relate them to the literature (textbook and research) that discusses this process and the difficulties that many people face when completing an advance directive.
(Cite/ reference any sources you use to explore these questions, including your texts.)

Part II

Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) Form

What is a Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) form?
When should this form be completed?
Who can complete the form?
Who needs to sign the form to make it a legal document?
(Cite/reference any sources you use to explore these questions, including your texts.)

Part III

Tie the two first sections together by writing a summary and conclusion.

This section should address:

1. the differences between an Advance Health Care Directive and the POLST,

2. the RN’s important role in assuring the patient’s right to autonomy in choosing the healthcare interventions the patient does or does not want.

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Use current APA format.

The paper should be between 3-5 pages in length excluding the title and reference page(s).

Cite and reference the course text and at least two (2) additional appropriate professional sources.

Pd: This is our text book for this course. Legal and Ethical Issues for Health Professionals – 3 Year Option, (4th ed.)

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You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.