Wisconsin Living Will

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Q. Just in case anyone is curious, I did some checking on D.N.R. orders in Wisconsin for personal/family knowledge and here's the deal... at least in Wisconsin... the DNR order MUST be signed by your doctor. Just finding a form, tailoring it to your state and signing it along with two witnesses MAY not be enough, as opposed to a living will, which doesn't need to be signed by your doctor... just two witnesses who don't have a "claim" to your estate (in other words you can't leave them ANYTHING in a simple/complex will or trust). You MUST have an illness or condition that has been determined to be a terminal illness or an illness where resuscitation would only compromise your quality of life or the attempts at resuscitation would be futile and/or cause you bodily injury (such as breaking many ribs doing CPR). If a doctor does sign a DNR order in Wisconsin, you are given a special bracelet (similar to a Medic-Alert bracelet perhaps?) that you must wear at all times and it must have your doctor's name and phone number as well as some sort of indication that DNR orders have been drawn up (maybe the letters DNR or the phrase Do Not Resuscitate would suffice here). If you remove the bracelet at any time, the DNR orders are no longer valid. I know that seems kind of silly (you mean I can't take it off when I'm in the shower or if I'm doing something where I may damage it?), but you have to try and remember that life is by no means planned out and things could happen at any moment. Of course you have to be 18, competent, and all that other jazz. If there is anybody out there from Wisconsin who thinks I may have interpreted something I read wrong (I got this info. from our state statutes and they can be confusing sometimes) or forgot something, please update the information. Any state info. on DNR orders from other states?

A. -I am concerned that this will be interpreted as a living will being equivalent to a DNR order. It is not. Even if you showed up at the hospital with a living will clenched in your dying hand, the staff would be required to resuscitate you until a doctor read your living will and gave a DNR order. The living will is simply a statement of your wishes and is intended to guide the physician. The DNR order is what the staff must have in order to not resuscitate. Incidentally, a living will can be used to request resuscitation and full treatment or any specific combination (yes to tube feeding, no to ventilator, no to CPR. yes to dialysis) of treatments. Also, having a living will does NOT legally require a doctor to make you a DNR.. (Any doctor ignoring a living will would have to have darn good reason to disregard it, but of course, before it was all sorted out, you would be resucitated and existing on a vent in ICU!) I found it interesting that in Wisconsin a D.N.R. order "follows" you outside of the hospital. I don't believe that is the case in most states. In Indiana, it needs to be written each time you enter the hosptial. If it is not on the current chart as a doctor's order, the nurses would be required to start resucitation. Getting the order written is usually fairly simple - a phone call to a doctor who knows your medical situation and wishes. If no "family doctor" exists who feels comfortable giving that order, a doctor will need to take the time to evaluate your case, speak to any family (as they are the ones who will be around to sue, not you!), review any living will or past DNR orders, etc. before writing the order. -You are absolutely correct in saying that a DNR order and a living will are not equivalent to each other. You do indeed need to have a DNR specifically drafted even if you have a living will. Otherwise a DNR cannot be executed. It's interesting to me that in Indiana a new DNR order needs to be written each time you enter the hospital.

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