When Choices Really Matter

Glenda Weeman, DO is a Board Certified Family Physician and Surgeon with over 30 years of experience caring for families. Dr. Weeman is the owner of Longmont Integrative Family Practice, where she works full-time to provide care to patients of all ages. She became interested in end of life care early in her career, before the concept of Hospice and Palliative care became common.

“When I was caring for dying patients back then, I tried to make sure I was at the bedside when patients were transitioning to death. Families needed support as much then as now. I wanted to give patients and their families a shoulder to lean on. Sometimes, I didn’t have to do or say anything special. Just trying to be there at a critical time.”

Since then, she has seen the evolution of end-of-life care, with Hospice and Palliative Care becoming an accepted choice for patients at the end of their lives, followed by Medical-Aid-In-Dying originating in the state of Oregon in 1997. Oregon was the first state to enact the Death with Dignity Act, which allows terminally ill Oregonians to end their lives through the voluntary self-administration of a lethal dose of medication expressly prescribed by a physician for that purpose. Since then, an additional 6 states have enacted similar laws, including Colorado in 2016.