Medical Power of Attorney: the person who speaks for you

A Medical Power of Attorney appoints someone to make health care decisions for you when you cannot make them yourself. It is the document that answers "who decides?" — the question that comes before "what would they have wanted?"

It is written to survive the thing that makes it necessary. An ordinary power of attorney ends when you lose the capacity to grant it, which is exactly the moment a medical one starts to matter; the document says in terms that it is not affected by your later incapacity.

What the document says

1. Who decides

   You name one person to make health care decisions for you, and — if you want one — an alternate who acts if the first is unwilling or dies. The document records an address and phone number for each of them, because the people who need to reach them are standing in a hospital.

2. What they may decide

   Consenting to treatment, refusing it, or withdrawing it; receiving and releasing your medical information; authorising an autopsy; giving all or part of your body; and directing what happens to your remains. That last one works alongside the funeral instructions in your Will rather than against them.

3. When it applies

   When you can no longer give informed consent, for an indefinite period, unless you revoke it or limit how long it lasts. It is not cancelled by losing the capacity to decide — which is what separates a *medical* power of attorney from an ordinary one.

What your agent cannot decide

The document grants a wide authority and then names what it does not reach. Being explicit about the limits is the point — most people hesitate over a Medical Power of Attorney because they are worried about handing over unlimited control:

• Commitment to a mental health treatment facility.
• Convulsive treatment.
• Psychiatry.
• Sterilization.
• Abortion.

That list is the document's own, not a summary of it, and it is why an agent is appointed to apply your instructions rather than to replace them.

How it works with your Living Will

• The Living Will holds the instructions: whether you want your life prolonged, whether you want artificial nutrition and hydration, and whether you want pain relieved even when it may shorten your life.
• The Medical Power of Attorney holds the person: who makes the decisions, and who talks to the doctors.
• An agent appointed without a Living Will has the authority but not your answer, so they will have to guess at the worst possible moment.
• A Living Will without an agent states preferences nobody is empowered to enforce, and it cannot reach your medical records, an autopsy, or what happens to your body.

Your Living Will answers the treatment questions; this document appoints the person who is asked them. They are written to be used together, which is why they are sold together.

What comes with your Will

• A Last Will and Testament — who receives what, who carries it out, and who raises your minor children.
• A Living Will — the treatment choices you make, written the way a hospital expects to read them.
• A Medical Power of Attorney — the person who speaks for you when you cannot, and the authority they have to do it.
• Signing instructions, and an affidavit page for a notary to complete where one is wanted.

Making it count

Choose somebody who will be reachable, and tell them that you have chosen them. An agent who discovers the appointment in a hospital corridor is being asked to make the hardest decisions of their life with no warning and no instructions.

Give them a copy, tell them where the original is kept, and give one to your doctor. You can replace the document or revoke it at any time — signing a new one is what does it — so choosing someone today is not a decision you are stuck with.

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