How To Tell Your Loved Ones
"One of the most common questions asked by people considering ending their suffering is how to start the conversation with family members and friends." (Continue reading ...)
Is Aid In Dying Right For You?
"Having a sense of the possibilities in advance is essential to minimize surprises, make specific requests for end-of-life symptom management, and decide the possible paths available to you." (Continue reading ...)
VSED: The Least Bad Option
“Your mother didn’t choose a terminal illness. She only chose not to let the disease pick when and how she would die.” (Continue reading ...)
Elderly Or Elder?
"We live in a culture that's intensely driven by productivity, accomplishments, and academic achievements. In doing this, we've forgotten about our wise ones, the storytellers, the original wisdom keepers, the Elders." (Continue reading ...)
Physician-Assisted Suicide: Should You Have A Fundamental Right To Control Your Own Death?
"What is fundamentally the difference between a doctor pulling a plug on a machine that provides lifesaving nutrients to a person that could potentially stay 'alive' on it for years, and a doctor prescribing pills to a person with mere days or months to live to end their unnecessary suffering?" (Continue reading ...)
A Good Death Is More About The Journey Than The Destination
"I was reluctant to force the issue. What remained unsaid came with its own set of consequences." (Continue reading ...)
Don’t Let The Patient 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." (Continue reading ...)
Solo Aging: Who Will Take Care of Me When I’m Dying?
"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." (Continue reading ...)
Dying Badly In The ICU
"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.'” (Continue reading ...)
‘Til Death Do Us Part!
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. (Continue reading ...)