LA – There is one word most doctors hate to say: Dying. Many of them will go to great lengths — even subterfuge — to avoid it. Sure, nobody likes to deliver bad news. But shouldn’t physicians have mastered that? In a recent study
A test to determine if elderly patients will die within 30 days of being admitted to hospital has been developed by doctors to give them the chance to go home or say goodbye to loved ones. Experts say this will prevent futile and expensive medical treatments which prolong suffering.
CA – Palm Springs residents Bill Bentinck and his wife, Lynda, were not afraid of having the big talk no one really wants to have. “We both told each other that we didn’t want to live through a painful dying process,” Bentinck said, “and when the time comes we’ll just do it and get it over with. No fear.”
UK – Today the health select committee begins taking evidence for a new inquiry into end-of-life care. This comes after considerable public concern about the quality of care that people receive as they die, and six months after the controversial “Liverpool Care Pathway”
CA – For some reason, there is a running joke among my immediate family about how my parents will die. Specifically, my brother and I will come home for Thanksgiving one year and find them decomposing on the couch. Yes, this is a bizarre thing to crack jokes about.
MA – Is saving the life of a terminal patient always the best medicine? Like most doctors, I was a young resident, fresh out of medical school, when I had my first experience with the American way of mistreating the dying. Taras Skripchenko was a frail, bed-bound 78-year-old man with inoperable
CANADA – Dramatic improvements are needed to provide quality palliative care for all patients facing the end of their lives, including boosting the number of health providers trained in specialized care of the dying, says an Ontario health advisory agency.
USA – As acceptance of end-of-life planning grows in the US, new concerns are emerging about how well patients and their doctors understand the forms they are signing about the care they want in their final days. In September, the Institute of Medicine’s “Dying in America” report
USA – The holiday season has dawned. Family members far and wide are reconnecting for parties and cookies by the fire. Gifts will be exchanged. The old recipes will make their way to the table. There will even be a glass or two lifted, perhaps some glogg.
USA – Doctors have long known that the overall U.S. mortality rate annually spikes around Thanksgiving, and remains elevated through the winter. (According to the CDC, the nation’s death rate in December 2013 was about 5% higher than the death rate in November 2013.)
