Do you think it is appropriate for a hospice nurse to hint around at how much of a patient’s medication it would take to kill them?

Hospice can be a great thing, but there are some facets to it I didn't appreciated when my mom needed it.

You don't need to feel guilty for still being alive. I don't know what their angle is but it's inappropriate. They seemed annoyed that my mom didn't die in the time her insurance allotted 🙄

They're just people and some of them have different ideas about end of life care. But you want to be here with your family and you deserve that more than anyone. No offense to the older generations but they're a little medieval/eff your feelings sometimes.

Over there a hospice nurse hinting at how much medication could kill a patient would breach basic suicide prevention and professional boundary protocols that certainly all hospitals and hospice programs follow, even if it’s framed as a joke or “hypothetical.”

Nurses are explicitly prohibited from suggesting methods, dosages, or feasibility of ending one’s life outside a extremely narrow, formal, physician led legal process, and casual or unsolicited comments like that violate nursing ethics, hospice communication standards, and risk management rules. It can , very easily, result in revoking their licenses.

And it is of course not appropriate socially no matter their reasons or the context.

Most countries, not just the US, legally bind health practitioners to never initiate such conversations. It is something you provide answers to not directly or indirectly suggest without others stepping in first to ask.


A healthy person doesn't feel entitled to deciding the length of someone else's life. Even more so if they work in healthcare. If there are people like that, they should quit and work in a slaughter house instead. What is even the point in providing healthcare if one doesn't value life in general?

This is why I'm glad my country is approved for medically assisted dying (maid)
I want to have that before facing hospice BS.
It's good you have a lot of support. And you're strong.
As for myself I wouldn't be able to handle it.

As a PSS I take care of my elderly mother and sometimes i have to have hospice nurses come in to help her after extended stays in the hospital. I have never heard them mention or hint at things like that ever.

No it is not appropriate....My Family had an instance of this with my Mom who was allowed to basically hospice in place..it was ugly and the regular nurse on the floor raised a stink

I'm confused about what recertifying is but what the hospice nurse did was just wrong

I have never heard anything like this. I agree with the person who said that this is dangerous to vulnerable people, and it should be reported. What a messed up thing to do, and I'm really not sure how else to understand it. 😨

I would consider it very dangerous. It's such a variable unless so many factors have been taken into account. If they were giving you a personalised fatal dosage then it would likely constitute a crime. If the suggested dose was generic then there is no guarantee it would work anyway. Better they just stfu and let patients discuss such issues if they wish and then respond to them appropriately.

It’s absolutely not appropriate. If such subject should ever be talked about it should be on your initiative. I’m sorry you have to go through extra worries and stressful behavior by others. 💜

That topic should never come up unless the patient explicitly requested the information, and even then really only in regions where it would be explicitly legal (in any formalized euthanasia regulatory environment) to aid any patient of truly sound mind to pursue that path if there is really no bearable alternative.

Especially for healthcare professionals, they don't need to stray into the weeds with editorializing or whatnot, with any talk that is not directly helping the patient in that moment or a direct but limited response to any casual conversation the patient initiated. If the patient starts talking about the weather, instead of their illness, I would think the healthcare professional should respond in a well-mannered way but not then stray into darkness like "you know, when it's storming, if you stood next to a tree ..." ... as long as a patient is clear that they are still trying to remain in this world, the healthcare professionals should only be working to help achieve that and to comfort the patient, not distracting them with anything useless to those goals.

And hinting is always BS in any context, everyone should always come out say what they fully mean and want to express, directly and unambiguously.

Report the two for certain. Yet if even the younger ones "are they secretly judging me for not overdosing" there's a problem with the whole agency.

Would be best to not even use the whole agency. Please remember the younger ones often take their que from the older ones.

I’m so sorry you’re dealing with that, my goodness that is inappropriate!

If you had asked for such information I would feel one way. But you didn't! Wrong for them to hint at such things!

😳 absolutely not! That’s just atrocious. Just…ew. 😣 I sure hope you can get some new nurses! 🫂

Totally inappropriate 😪

Highly inappropriate ... and leaves them responsible if (vulnerable) patient takes the advice.


Murder by proxy

Wtf, that's entirely inappropriate