National Health Care Decisions Day 2010

As many of you know April 16th is National Health Care Decisions Day, so I am not going to write up much about it but more to merely mark the day and encourage you to be active.

Things you can do:

• Wear a White Ribbon
• Wear a Button saying "Have You Had The Talk?"
• Staff your organization's advance directive table
• Change your Facebook Status or Twitter Status to state that YOU have advance directives and your family and doctor(s) know about them.

My Facebook Status will say: "I am 34 years old, I have no major medical problems and I have completed my advance directives. Celebrate National Health Care Decisions Day, Friday April 16th and change your status!"

If you use Twitter use the hashtag #HaveTheTalk to mark your tweet.  This is not official but it doesn't appear the people behind NHDD are endorsing #NHDD either.  So I picked #HaveTheTalk since it acts as a call to action and is much more intriguing then #NHDD or #advdir.  We will see if it becomes a meme.

Here are some links to some resources for completing advance directives. Personally I like the Center for Practical Bioethics Caring Conversations.

And yes the death and taxes reference was purposeful in selecting the date.