NEW YORK TIMES: Frank Talk About Care at Life’s End

Excerpt from Jane E. Brody's August 24, 2010 New York Times column citing the Palliative Care Information Act, which Senator Duane sponsored and Governor Paterson signed into law.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

August 24, 2010

Frank Talk About Care at Life’s End

By Jane E. Brody

Legislators have begun to recognize the medical, humanitarian and economic value of helping terminally ill patients and their families navigate treatment options as they approach the end of life.

Last week, over the objections of New York State’s medical society, Gov. David A. Paterson signed into law a bill — the New York Palliative Care Information Act — requiring physicians who treat patients with a terminal illness or condition to offer them or their representatives information about prognosis and options for end-of-life care, including aggressive pain management and hospice care as well as the possibilities for further life-sustaining treatment...

The New York law was sponsored by Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried and Senator Thomas K. Duane, both Democrats of Manhattan, at the request of Compassion and Choices of New York, an organization that seeks to improve end-of-life comfort care and reduce the agony often associated with dying in this era of costly can-do medicine.

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