Nearly two decades have passed since her mother died, but Ramona Rhodes, a geriatrician and health care researcher, still wonders if hospice and other end-of-life care would have eased her mom’s final weeks.
Rhodes’ mother struggled with pain and breathing difficulties in the intensive care unit of a small-town Arkansas hospital before her death in 1999 at age 49. Despite undergoing several years of treatment after her initial diagnosis of stage III breast cancer, Rhodes’ mother never discussed what she wanted to happen if the treatments stopped working.
“I suspect that my mother knew that her prognosis was poor, and she just didn’t want to talk about it,” Rhodes says.
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