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FOR MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS

Guidelines for advance care planning with patients

In a webinar on Conversations About End-of-Life Care Planning that DignitySA helped the Advance Directives Campaign to host in October 2025, Dr Margie Venter of PALPRAC shared the following advice, “If you're a general practitioner, and your patient is not ill-ill but they have diabetes and hypertension and they're on a statin and whatever—I think it's good with all of your patients to say, "What I'd like to talk to you about today is just how you think about your healthcare going forward and a little bit about the 'what ifs,' just so that I can understand how to guide you, should anything happen. And this is something I have—a conversation I have with all my patients. Would it be okay if we had that today?" That kind of normalises it: "This is part of my normal practice. This is what we do.".... I think we often make the assumption, because people aren't talking about it, that they're not thinking about it. I think many people are, and someone is just so grateful that finally someone brought up the elephant in the room. And often the response is, "Thank you so much. No one has ever asked me these questions." 

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