The Good Death Society Blog

Jul 16

15

How To Prepare Yourself For A Good End Of Life

By Katy Butler | Completed Life, Dying, End-of-life care, End-of-Life Planning, Funeral Planning, Good Death, Healthcare Power of Attorney, Hospice, Palliative Care, Surrogate | 6 Comments

Don’t wait until you’re at death’s door to explore your passions, deepen your relationships and find your posse.

Jul 09

6

Being Present In The Unpredictable

By Christina Wall | Death, Dying, End-of-Life Planning, Hospice | 4 Comments

The most touching moments are those when I get to witness a client’s surrender to the natural course of things … when the control and desperation subside and acceptance fills the void.

Jul 02

3

Here’s to Hospice – But Not For-Profit Please

By Fran Moreland Johns | Choice, End-of-life care, End-of-Life Planning, Hospice | 5 Comments

If you’re a for-profit business in the hospice business, where is your profit coming from?

Jun 25

3

Precious Time

By Jennifer O'Brien | Death, Dying, Regret Prevention, Survivorship | 6 Comments

Not everyone gets Precious Time. It is a blessing if we recognize it for what it is, name it, and face it.

Jun 18

2

Patients Want A ‘Good Death’ At Home, But Hospice Care Can Badly Strain Families (Part 2)

By Blake Farmer | Dying, End-of-life care, Good Death, Hospice, Palliative Care | 3 Comments

For many families, making hospice work at home means hiring extra help — out of your own pocket.

Jun 11

0

Patients Want A ‘Good Death’ At Home, But Hospice Care Can Badly Strain Families

By Blake Farmer | Dying, End-of-life care, Good Death, Hospice, Palliative Care | 2 Comments

“Imagine if you’re the caregiver, and that you’re in the house. It’s in the middle of the night, 2 o’clock in the morning, and all of a sudden, your family member has a grand mal seizure.”

Jun 04

2

Respecting End-of-Life Choice: The Art of the Possible

By Barak Wolff | Assisted Suicide, End-of-life care, Medical Aid in Dying, Oregon Death with Dignity Act, Right-to-Die Laws | One Comment

Advocates, supporters, and champions (of MAiD) need to decide if it is better to have a law that is less than ideal … or have no law at all? Is something better than nothing?

May 28

2

We Like To Talk About “A Good Death”. But How Often Does This Really Happen?

By Andreas Laupacis | Dying, End-of-life care, Good Death, Medical Aid in Dying, Palliative Care, Suffering and Death | 6 Comments

Even though I would argue that most deaths aren’t good, we improve the quality of death of the vast majority of people we care for, often substantially. And there isn’t much that’s more satisfying than that.

It just doesn’t make the death good.

May 21

4

Voluntary Assisted Dying Legislation Should Respect Human Rights

By Dr. David Swanton | Advance Directives, Dementia, Discrimination, Euthanasia, Mental Illness, Palliative Care, Suffering and Death | 5 Comments

With the assistance of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies and Exit International, I surveyed voluntary assisted dying (VAD) advocates and supporters around the world to inject some much-needed data and objectivity into the VAD debate.

May 14

0

Medical Aid In Dying Is Still Called “Assisted Suicide”; An Anthropologist Explains The Problem With That

By Anita Hannig | Assisted Suicide, Choice, Completed Life, Death, Death With Dignity, Death With Dignity Act, Dying, Grief, Medical Aid in Dying, Mental Illness, Oregon Death with Dignity Act, PAD, Rational Death, Rational Suicide, Religion, Right-to-Die Laws, Suffering and Death, Suicide, The Right to Die | 5 Comments

It’s time that we revise and refine our cultural lexicon around this emergent end-of-life practice. A medically assisted death definitively warrants a linguistic and conceptual category of its own.