Lessons from Schiavo beyond the legal

Our nation has faced any number of dramatic challenges over the last few years. Recently, People across the nation focused their attention to the West coast of Florida, and towards the hospice where Terri Schiavo resided during the remaining days of her life. All of us involved in home care and hospice are keenly aware of the great dilemmas that can arise when considering the cessation of life-sustaining technologies, hydration, or nutrition. We may have faced those dilemmas both personally as well as professionally. For Terri Schiavo, like numerous others in like circumstances, decisions most often made in private, became a very public matter subject to the attention of the mass media, pollsters, and politicians.