“In my experience of interviewing hundreds of families from all different cultural backgrounds for over a quarter of a century, I can tell you this – those who loved well at the end never, ever regret it.”
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“Question: Are you able to face death with your friend or do you bail?”
“Your mother didn’t choose a terminal illness. She only chose not to let the disease pick when and how she would die.”
“‘Don’t let the patient die’… is that the right thing or the wrong thing for a given patient? It is time for physicians to think that through more completely and allow, perhaps, a different answer.”
“No one is born into this world alone, and in the best of circumstances, no one dies alone. With people living longer than ever before, however, outliving family and friends is a modern-day reality.”
“Why would an anti-MAiD activist try to force a patient about whom they know nothing, to live by the activist’s personal values rather than the patient’s own?”
“The sentence that sent my blood pressure skyward was this: ‘Even if my patients are beyond pain, there is also a cost to those who are forced to perform emergency efforts that is just that: a performance.’”
Death. Mortality. End of Life. Something inevitable, yet rarely discussed and a source of intense discomfort for most. When mentioned, it is considered inauspicious and rude in many cultures. Death is an integral part of the workday for a Critical Care Physician like me. But it was never a topic of discussion in Medical School or training.
Jewish law states the dying are to be considered, for legal purposes, “like one who is alive for every purpose”, capable of wielding the same power over their lives until their very last moments, as they did in their days of health.
Most view dementia as a person leaving them. But they’re not. They’re evolving into a new person, similar but not exact. Their capacity to perform tasks and retain memory of recent events doesn’t disqualify them from continuing to be loved and treated with dignity and respect, especially when the end is near.
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