Dr. Leslie Blackhall, Head of Palliative Care at the University of Virginia, believes that accepting dying as a part of life allows us to achieve a fuller and richer life with the days that we live. Dr. Blackhall has had a career-long focus on the care of patients with life-limiting illnesses, starting in her residency when she published a ground-breaking paper on medical futility in the New England Journal of Medicine. Since then, her mission has been to promote the understanding of end of life as a developmental stage and part of the continuum of care for all patients.
Thank you for this share.
I think (in my opinion) a great deal of ageing and end of life fear and anxiety due to incurable illness (disease) could be lessened by easier access to medically assisted death or dying. And important in this is the matter of timing (sooner or later) with the timing largely determined by the individual patient. Really, I think it boils down to the individual having control over when and how he or she wants to die – that is, rather than medical, government, or other experts determining when this person can cease to exist in the physical form. Different people depending on a multitude of factors (physical, psychological, social, religious, spiritual, philosophical…..) will have different tolerances for suffering. Some may want to continue living with a certain set of medical and/or psychological circumstances; others may not. And because no one of us can know another’s suffering, in my opinion, we must develop a heightened and non-judgemental respect for the dying wishes, timing, and means (including suicide) of others.
I would love to talk to you more, Peter, about these thoughts and the presentation of Dr Blackhall. I like her, believe that we need to focus much more on aging, deterioration, and eventual death as natural life stages that are inevitable and reflected in all natural life around us. Effectively, we are no different that the fish in the sea, the animals on this planet, and the trees and plants in our gardens. This we must accept.