End of Life Decisions

After working several years for a home health and hospice agency, I have cared for several hospice patients and have developed a deep appreciation for hospice. Ideally, I would want to go experience end of life in the comfort of my own home with hospice services. Realistically, however, death can occur in many forms and in emergency situations, I think the best person to help make decisions for me would be my fiancé, or a close friend that can make informed decisions. I believe that culturally, my family being Latino have traditionally relied on family members to help support one another on decisions like these, and without a doubt my family would appoint either their significant other, a sibling, or children as proxies. I have had discussions with my family members about end of life care, but have not officially completed advanced directives. I think as I continually bring up topics like these, my family has become more comfortable discussing this topic and it has become easier to have a serious conversation regarding end of life. When I tried talking to my family members about my personal decision of who my proxy was, they were a bit surprised to discover that I had not selected my parents as proxies. I believe it goes back to the cultural aspect of always using family members. I have decided to appoint a close friend, and my family was very surprised that it was not a family member, but they do understand my reasons.