Advance Healthcare Directives

At Seton Medical Center, our primary focus is respect for each patient. We seek to enhance quality of life primarily by preventing illness and restoring health, but we also recognize that alleviating suffering and caring for the dying are essential aspects of our mission.

Your Choices
Although each situation is unique and life decisions are never easy, we encourage you to consider some very important questions now, before you are faced with what may be a very difficult decision.

• What will happen if you find yourself, or a loved one, with a chronic or terminal disease that fills every day living with pain and suffering?
• What are your options for treatment or life support?
• If your heart or breathing stops, do you want to be resuscitated? Do you want efforts made to restart your heart or breathe for you artificially?
• If a loved one should be in this situation, what would he/she choose?
• Does the attending physician know your wishes?
• What can you do in advance to assure that your wishes are carried out in the event that you are not able to make your own decision?

Documenting Your Choices in Advance
Patients are usually able to make informed, deliberate choices about their own treatment. These choices can be expressed in advance, before you are unable to express your wishes due to progression of an illness or other unanticipated problems. The document available in California to convey those choices is the Advance Healthcare Directives. In this document, you may choose to appoint an agent to make your healthcare decisions in situations where you are no longer able to make them for yourself or you may choose to simply express your desires concerning your healthcare.

Make an appointment for a free consultation to learn how to ensure that your wishes regarding medical decisions are followed, even if you are unable to express them. Please call Spiritual Care Services at 650-991-6439 to make an appointment.

You can also download and print a PDF of our Advance Healthcare Directive form in either English (72 KB) or Spanish (76 KB). This document is available as a printable PDF file using Adobe Acrobat. If you do not already have an Adobe Acrobat Reader, download a free copy now from Adobe Acrobat.

Ethical Questions and Concerns
Conflicts that may arise concerning decision-making about healthcare and treatment may be referred to the Ethics Committee. Anyone (staff members, physicians, associates, family and patients) may access the Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee provides a forum for consultation and advice to hospital staff and/or patients and their families to assist in decision-making. Call 650-991-6421 during the day or 650-992-4000 during the evening to contact the Ethics Committee.Organ Donations
Seton Medical Center is making every effort to support organ and tissue donation. The hospital has a relationship with the California Transplant Donor Network. The Network serves as a link between doctors and those awaiting organ and tissue transplantation. For more information, please call 1-800-553-6667.