Grandma’s Tattooed Directive

May 23, 2006

Eighty-year-old Mary Wohlford doesn’t want family members or health care workers to be confused about her wishes should she ever become incapacitated, so she came up with a creative solution: she had the words “DO NOT RESUSCITATE” tattooed on her chest.

“People might think I’m crazy, but that’s OK,” said Wohlford. “Sometimes the nuttiest ideas are the most advanced.” She said her decision was the result of what she witnessed during her almost 30 years in nursing and during the Terri Schiavo controversy. If Terri Schiavo had a “Do Not Resuscitate” tattoo, Wohlford said, “then her husband could have said, ‘See, it’s right here. This is what she wanted.’ But she verbalized it, so they had this big rigmarole.”

Would Wohlford’s tattoo stop an Iowa doctor from resuscitating her?

“According to Iowa law, the answer is no,” said Dr. Mark Purtle, who works in internal medicine at Iowa Methodist Medical Center. The tattoo, though, will serve as a reminder to Wohlford’s family members to check her advance directive – which she hangs on the side of her refrigerator.

(HT: AJoB blog)