If a family member or friend asked you to serve as his/her medical power of attorney, what would your answer be? Many people agree to assume this role without a second thought, but you should take some time to understand what your responsibilities as a…
Like most situations that physicians encounter in their work, end-of-life conversations are not easy and require preparation and training. Yet these patient discussions are among the most satisfying I’ve experienced in my career because they’ve made me…
“Holding space means being physically, mentally, and emotionally present for someone. It means putting your focus on someone to support them as they feel their feelings. An important aspect of holding space is managing judgment while you are pres…
“To help the reader understand the issues better, I would like to relate some stories. A friend of mine was dying of pancreatic cancer. He had an implantable morphine pump and was on both hospice and palliative care. Still, he found that his suff…
I wrote my undergraduate thesis on death and dying. I read journal articles trying to understand what death meant and how it affected people. I spent hours reading books, both fiction and nonfiction, trying to understand if you can ever die a good deat…
In the KevinMD article, “Assisted suicide: a change of heart,” the author contends that there is salvation in suffering, but not everyone believes that is true. While I support the author’s ability to decide how she wants to die, her …
When I was training as a surgeon, I was pro assisted suicide. I believed it was a humane act of kindness and compassion. I imagined myself to be in the place of the other and at times felt if that was me, I’d rather be dead than live with that conditio…
An excerpt from Dying with Ease: A Compassionate Guide for Making Wiser End-of-Life Decisions. Used by permission of the publisher Rowman & Littlefield. All rights reserved. In 2017, there were 2,813,503 deaths in the United States. About a quarter…
Recently, a neighbor and friend of mine died. After her cancer was diagnosed as incurable, she was referred to hospice care, and family members traveled long distances to spend quality time with her during her last month of life. Her neighbors in our c…
“As a runner, my pulse rests around fifty, but the ICU team had worried when it dipped to thirty-five, and my blood pressure hovered around ninety over fifty. Understandably, bags of saline were hung, and steroids were added. My headache improved…
