And I don’t – I don’t believe in that at all, you know. That’s the reason I made out a – me and my wife both had a living will made

up and she knows what I want, and I know what she wants” (White Selleckchem Natural Product Library participant #3-1). This belief in a written living will was also echoed in a Hispanic group “Put it in writing” (#H1-1), “It has to be written down” (#H1-2), and “You have to write it down as back-up. You know, you tell them all you want to, but you know at that last minute, because my daughter’s close to me. I don’t think she’d ever want to let me go, see” (#H1-3). An African American participant (#A2-1) stated: “It has a way of separating the love that you thought you had and, whether it be greedy or just some of ‘em trying to take control, it gets hum-drum. Things aren’t really what you want unless it’s legally done with

a will or you have a set power of attorney that has your wishes recorded and written down.” selleck kinase inhibitor Another patient explained that a written document was necessary because surrogates might become incapacitated as well: “anything can happen like, uh, wife’s supposed to be taking care of me, but something could happen to her.” …“That’s why we have it written down and designates her as primary – my two kids secondary. So — somebody there within the family will know what’s going on and all the instructions be written down. And not open to interpretation. Meloxicam Verbal communication’s open to a lot of different interpretations” (#W3-2). A few white patients felt that someone other than family might do a better job in carrying out a patient’s wishes and thus had designated medical power of attorneys: “Well, I think that, naming a friend as the executor of whatever you want to call this, your living will or whatever, it creates less friction from certain family members” (#W2-2).

Other participants wanted to avoid burdening others with decision-making and strove to prevent family discord (“Altruist”). Altruists stated: “And if the time comes when that’s it, just read it off and take care of it. It shouldn’t be her burden or mine on her case (#W2-3), “I don’t want to put no burden on nobody else” (#H1-4), and “I think it’s very important – I don’t want to have my kids or whatever under that pressure” (#A1-2) and: “it would take the pressure off the children and the rest of your family because some of them would be at odds, some of them would want to pull the plug on you and some of them wouldn’t. […] They wouldn’t have to go through that if they already know what you want. […]I feel it’s important for my children to know and not have to, as he said, be under the pressure to make it.” (#A1-2).